drip, drip, drip, universal health care is coming. How do you boil a frog?
Uninsured children in Georgia and South Carolina could get a lot of help this year if the U.S. Senate follows the House in passing an expanded State Children's Health Insurance Program bill, local and national advocates said.
The U.S. House overwhelmingly passed the measure Wednesday.
In a report released Thursday, Families USA estimated that by making an additional 4.1 million children eligible for the insurance program, the number of uninsured children in Georgia would be reduced by 59 percent and in South Carolina by 40 percent.
That would mean adding 181,000 to the 307,000 on the PeachCare rolls in Georgia and 53,300 to the 132,000 in South Carolina's program, according to the group.
"That's a great step," said William Kanto, the chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia. "It's a first step."
It will also require work to educate parents about how to use the insurance wisely, he said.
The bigger problem will be addressing long-standing habits of using the emergency room for basic medical care and only showing up when a problem has become acute, Dr. Kanto said.
MCG and local health advocates have been working to address this in asthma patients through a project to connect them with primary care doctors and specialists when needed, using case managers to follow up and ensure patients are taking their regular or controller medication and not just relying on rescue inhalers when symptoms flare up.
"It's not going to solve the problem," he said of the federal legislation. "But it gives us a solution by which we can solve the problem."
Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.
POTENTIAL IMPACT
If the Senate approves the measure and it becomes law:
4.1 million
More children would be eligible for coverage under the State Children's Health Insurance Program nationwide
181,000
Children would be added to the 307,000 already insured in Georgia
53,000
Children would be added to the 132,000 already insured in South Carolina
Source: Families USA report
Comments
drip, drip, drip, universal health care is coming. How do you boil a frog?
you season it with patricia thomas. HELLO!
Don't expect a medical system that survives off sickness to fix the problem. Alternative care like NAET,EFT, sunshine, water, bedroom windows slightly open at night, and low sugar intake; and children's need for medical care is pretty much done.
Anothe DIM/Obama $35B for us tax payers and they are just getting started. This bill will allow illegals and more adults to be insured per the debates I hearcd on the House floor. Of course, the DIMs shoved it down the Repubs throats any how. Hope out Senat Repubs have regained their gonads by now. Seems during tthe confirmation hearings they lost them.
Whats is the use of keeping them healthy when there is no money to educate them??.....No monies should be cut from Education (classroom...not the bloated top )
jack: Some things aren't a partisan issue okay.. And it's DEMS not DIMS okay...Geez...
jack: What do you think about GWB saying his pushing and funding AIDS/AFRICA as his greatest achievement??? Does that bother you???What are you so afraid of?? Are you worried that someone will be healthier or happier than you? Are you afraid someone will get something you don't believe they deserve?? Were talking about CHILDREN who are uninsured, so trust me, they aren't living the high life, so save your paranoid worries for something else...
My children never had free insurance. My husband and I worked like dogs to have a better life for us and our family. It is our responsibility to take care of the elderly and the disabled but but not freeloaders. I know a family where both parents work, earn a decent living, and have access to employer insurance but their children are on Peachcare. All of us just sit back and let it happen like lambs to the slaughter.
Really I don't think it is the insurance that keeps going up. I think it is medical cost spiraling out of control. Remember the insurance company dosen't set charges for medical procedures and visits, they are set by the self-policing medical community. Did it ever cross your mind why doctors don't advertise their prices? If we want to control medical costs we need to set limits on what hospitals can charge, especially for napkins, paper gowns and foam shoes. My last visit, I slept (yeah slept) 2 nights and it only cost about $7,000.00. With costs like that what do you think insurance companies are going to do, just eat it! Finally, if we are so short of doctors, why does the medical community lobby so hard to keep foreign doctors out. Just remember we have visas for everything else, aren't doctors more important than software engineers and lettuce pickers?
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