Do right by the children
Text 
No Comments [ Add Comment ]T
he federal Children's Health Insurance Program -- CHIP -- was a product of a Bizarro World bipartisan effort between Utah's staunchly conservative Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and Massachusetts liberal Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy. The program is 10 years old and up for reauthorization in the Senate this week.
CHIP provides federal matching funds to states, helping to provide health insurance for children of parents who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid by not enough to afford to purchase coverage. It's a government program that makes perfect sense.
And in case the Senate needs a little nudge to do the right thing by reauthorizing CHIP, Utah's Gov. Jon Huntsman put his hand to senators' backs last week: "Uninsured children don't receive the preventative care that they need, which can affect their quality of life," the governor said in a written statement. "Children with access to adequate health care lead healthier lives, perform better in school and are more likely to succeed in life."
Looked at that way, it's less a welfare program than a crime-prevention and economic-development tool of the state. But anyway you stack it up, it's what a decent society does for its children.
As Dr. David Sundwall, the Utah Department of Health's executive director, told our reporter Shane Farver last week, Congress' allotment of funds to CHIP is limited. While some 110,000 children have been helped by the program during the past decade, Sundwall explained, another 12,000 to 14,000 could be helped if the funding were increased.
On top of that, the Utah Department of Health estimates, there are more than 45,000 children who qualify to take part in the program but don't, for whatever reason.
Making sure that all children receive basic preventative health care and are able to see a doctor when they are ill is the least the rest of us can do. We join Huntsman and Hatch -- who also supports reauthorization -- in the call for the Senate, then the House and finally President Bush, to continue funding the CHIP program at levels which will match the legitimate needs of those families.
Add Your Comment
