Health care benefits should cover all children

When our daughter, Chelsea, was nine, she had to have her tonsils taken out. Though we knew it was a low-risk medical procedure, Bill and I were nervous wrecks. But our family was lucky because we had health insurance. Paying for Chelsea's hospital stay was the least of our worries.

Given the stress we felt when our child was hospitalized overnight for a relatively minor procedure, I can barely imagine the heartache experienced by parents who can't afford health insurance for their children each time a child becomes ill. In too many cases, they are overwhelmed by questions not only of how and when their sick child will respond to treatment but whether they will be able to afford the necessary medical care in the first place.

The time is long overdue for all of us to address what I believe is an economic, social and moral crisis in our country. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not extend health coverage to all of its children. There is no good reason our country, which is blessed with the most advanced and innovative medical facilities and talent in the world, continues to allow so many children to grow up without regular access to basic health care.

Today, nearly 10 million American children under 18 have no health insurance. A recent study showed that 20 million children were without insurance for at least one month over a two-year period. As health-care costs and insurance premiums keep rising, fewer employers are offering health insurance to their workers. And more and more working parents are finding that, after paying the rent, heat, electricity and grocery bills, they cannot afford coverage for their children.

What is most surprising is that the majority of our uninsured children are not poor. At least two-thirds of all uninsured children are being raised by working parents whose incomes are above the official poverty level. In fact, the number of poor, uninsured children has been decreasing (thanks to Medicaid), while the number of uninsured middle-class children has been increasing.

What this means is that too many children who have trouble seeing a blackboard do not get the glasses they need to correct their vision. Too many nagging coughs go untreated until they worsen into life-threatening conditions that require costly treatments and lengthy hospital stays. And many parents, faced with the threat of an uninsured injury, forbid their children to play sports or visit the playground.

Some people believe we cannot guarantee health care to all children because of cost. But, as other countries have already found, a sensible child health insurance system is a critical, cost-effective investment in the future. That's because most children who become seriously ill or injured are eventually treated somewhere and at a much greater cost than their parents -- or we -- would have paid if their symptoms had been treated earlier.

In negotiations over the new balanced budget, the President has made sure that as many as 5 million children currently living without health insurance can get the coverage and care they deserve. And this spring, several bills are making their way through Congress that build on innovative efforts begun in individual states to cover all uninsured children and make it easier for working parents to buy health insurance for their children.

In recent years, many states have been able to insure thousands of children by expanding Medicaid benefits to include older children and children living in families whose incomes are slightly above the poverty level. Others have created new state- funded child insurance programs or joined forces with private insurance companies to subsidize premiums for needy families.

These efforts represent a good start. But the question of whether a sick American child gets needed medical treatment should not depend on where he or she lives. We must encourage members of Congress to create a plan that ensures every single child in our country enjoys the same health care and security Bill and I are able to give our own daughter.

Providing health care to all of our children is more than just a political challenge. It is a test of our faith in the future and of whether our rhetoric about family values will be translated into action on behalf of our children.

-- Creators' Syndicate