Sure the headline is sensationalistic to attract attention in RSS readers and provide a good line for Twitter, but a stronger case for this can be made for this compared to many claims coming from the right. A report published today from Johns Hopkins looks at the effect of lack of health care coverage on child deaths:
Lack of adequate health care may have contributed to the deaths of some 17,000 US children over the past two decades, according to a study released by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
The research, to be published Friday in the Journal of Public Health, was compiled from more than 23 million hospital records from 37 states between 1988 and 2005.
The study concluded that children without health insurance are far more likely to succumb to their illnesses than those with medical coverage.
“If you are a child without insurance, if you’re seriously ill and end up in the hospital, you are 60 percent more likely to die than the sick child in the next town who has insurance,” said Fizan Abdullah, lead writer of the study and a pediatric surgeon at Hopkins.
With some seven million children in the United States currently uninsured, the problem needed addressing immediately, the report said.
Is this really the type of country which conservatives believe we should be?
I don’t know about conservatives. But, yeah, you can put me down in that list if the alternative is government taxes and mandates.
Of course, I am perfectly willing to consider adding a “provide health care to poor children” organization to my list of charities.
#HealthCareShake » Opponents of Health Care Reform Are Child Killers Liberal Values http://tinyurl.com/yjkt6pw
#HealthCareShake » Opponents of Health Care Reform Are Child Killers Liberal Values http://tinyurl.com/yjkt6pw
‘I don’t know about conservatives. But, yeah, you can put me down in that list if the alternative is government taxes and mandates.’
I’m going to go way out on a limb and say this is the conservative answer to your question across the board, Ron.
‘Of course, I am perfectly willing to consider adding a “provide health care to poor children” organization to my list of charities.’
And this is what they will all say to feel better about it.
I’ve always been fascinated at the tremendous lack of understanding of the scope and power of private charity on the right.
Now, in most states, children are automatically eligible for Medicaid even if their parents are not. But Ron has written on more than one occasion about Medicaid’s weaknesses. My father was an eligibility worker for MediCal in California, so I know what he’s talking about.
This is really insurance reform and not health care reform, but it addresses the most necessary aspects of insurance reform. I have mostly resigned myself to settling for insurance reform and continuing to work for health care reform.
Sure, if charity would take care of the problem this would be preferable. The reason the government gets involved is that charity cannot be relied upon to handle such problems.
I wish they were not addressing coverage for the poor by expanding Medicaid. At least the legislation does call for increasing Medicaid payments to the same level as Medicare for primary care services.
This should improve access but won’t entirely solve the problem. Even if primary care services are paid the same, I’m sure that many procedures done in primary care offices (such as EKG’s, basic lab) won’t be included in the pay hikes making total reimbursement still lower for Medicaid patients.
It’s a fundamental difference on the core belief about what government is around for. If you believe that government is supposed to handle all general problems, then, yeah, you go for government providing food and shelter and medical care and people getting hurt feelings and all that. If you believe government is only the section of society that can legitimately initiate force then you tend to believe it should be limited to stopping violence and people have to deal with the rest of the laundry list of life issues themselves.
It’s only marginally open to debate because it really is a difference founded on core principles.
Those really aren’t the choices. Supporting a government role for financing health care is not the same as believing government should handle food, shelter, or even the delivery of health care. The role for government is those things which the market cannot handle. This includes stopping violence but is not necessarily limited to this. This also includes a role in the financing of health care. The market is not able to handle this, at least without major government regulation, and every industrialized country in the world has found it necessary to utilize government here. The United States has used government the least here, and has one of the worst health care delivery systems in the industrialized world.
I’ll add my two cents again, just because my view of government is so completely different from Fritz’s.
While there is always going to be ‘authority’ associated with government because the people who actually make the decisions will always have de facto power, government should not be about ‘authority.’ Government is the means by which the people of a civil society administer society and the venue in which they address the needs of society. Government is, or should be, an ongoing conversation rather than a ruling body. We simply elect delegates to communicate on our behalf because of the massive difficulty of having a truly democratic discussion.
The ideal aside, someone will always be in charge because that is the nature of the beast. There’s no getting around it. As long as there has to be someone in charge, they better stay out of my bedroom and do right by the little guy who can’t do right by himself.
Provocative article makes some good points about the public option! http://cli.gs/t4Edgu
@OurCareSource WOW, great find! –>Provocative article makes some good points about the public option! http://cli.gs/t4Edgu
Provocative article makes some good points about the public option! http://cli.gs/t4Edgu
@OurCareSource WOW, great find! –>Provocative article makes some good points about the public option! http://cli.gs/t4Edgu