Bush's Budget Cuts Cost Effective Health Care for Kids

While paying lip service to our nation’s health care crisis, the President's proposed budget includes drastic cuts to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and Medicaid, successful programs which provide health care mostly to children in working families.  

Medicaid and SCHIP offer cost-effective coverage. Children are offered comprehensive, affordable insurance at a cost that is 31 percent less than private insurance. And children are the least costly group covered by Medicaid, comprising nearly half of the program’s enrollees but less than 20 percent of spending on the program.

Health care costs are rising, but cutting back on coverage for children won’t fix this problem. In fact, offering coverage to all children once and for all can save money.

Studies show that children who are insured receive more consistent medical treatment, and those that get consistent treatment get more effective care – more accurate diagnoses, reduced emergency department use, fewer hospitalizations and fewer unmet medical needs – all of which reduce the cost of their care.

When children are uninsured, families have to delay or forego immunizations, preventative screenings, and treatments for chronic conditions like diabetes, or acute conditions like a case of the flu. Delaying or relinquishing care for our children simply doesn’t add up to lower health care costs.

Covering children is profound common sense and compellingly moral.  People all over America agree that it is time to cover all children.  The debate should be over whether we can do it right now or whether it will take two or three years to travel the relatively short path to get there. 

The President is not only wrong on policy but impossibly out of touch with the American people. Congress must reject the President’s budget, fully fund the current SCHIP program and put American on a path to cover all children as soon as possible.  

John Bouman
President
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
50 E. Washington St. Suite 500
Chicago, IL 60602
312.263.3830 ext. 250