Keeping our kids healthy is vital
for a better America

March 1, 2005

By Steve Varnum
Public Policy Director
Children's Alliance of NH

When President Bush presented his priorities in this year’s State of the Union speech, he promised, “We will do what Americans have always done – build a better world for our children and grandchildren.”

Just five days later, the president proposed a budget that abandoned that promise. If it is approved by Congress, not only will millions of children grow up without the medical care they need, but their untreated health problems will end up costing New Hampshire taxpayers much more in lost revenues and increased expenses that it would ever have cost to provide the diagnoses, the treatments, and, most important of all, the preventive measures that children need right now.

The president’s proposed budget cuts Medicaid, the joint federal-state program for low-income families and their children, by at least $45 billion. It also dangles a budgetary bait-and-switch with the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health care for kids whose families earn a little too much to qualify for Medicaid.

These cuts couldn’t come at a worse time. With companies cutting health coverage for their employees, nine million children nationwide lack medical insurance. In New Hampshire, the cuts threaten the progress made by Healthy Kids, a model program that has reduced to 17,000 the number of uninsured children in our state.

That number is certain to rise if federal health budgets are chopped. When the federal government cuts or freezes support for health care programs, the responsibility for those services is passed down to states, communities, providers and the families themselves. New Hampshire is already struggling to cope with a $100 million decrease in funding from the federal Medicaid program. As a result, it is considering ill-advised ideas such as Health Services Accounts that would encourage low-income parents to skip routine medical treatment for their children. The Bush budget will only make matters worse.

The Bush Administration is trying to sugarcoat this bitter pill by including new funds to reach out to and enroll more children in Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. But the budget doesn’t include enough funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to actually provide care for the additional children. And talk of a budget freeze conceals the fact that health care costs keep rising, so the same amount of money for children’s health insurance will buy fewer services each year.

While this budgetary sleight-of-hand is confusing, the human impact of the cuts is clear. More families will be unable to afford to take their kids to the doctor for regular checkups – or even when they get sick. More ill or injured children will end up in hospital emergency rooms, instead of doctor’s offices. Some kids' medical conditions will go untreated until they become serious and lasting, such as ear infections that result in hearing loss or symptoms that are signs of asthma or diabetes. And even children from families fortunate enough to health insurance will also be at risk – because one sick kid can infect the others in her classroom.

Governments – state and federal – can’t save money by cutting children's health care. Medical care at a hospital emergency room can cost seven times as much as a regular checkup at a doctor’s office. When families have health insurance, their children grow up healthier, have fewer sick days, do better in school, and have a better chance to be productive – and tax-paying – adults. On the other hand, kids who grow up without annual examinations, immunizations, and care for childhood illnesses can become adults who are chronically ill, miss many days of school, and become unproductive or unemployable. They will cost taxpayers much more in lost earnings, unpaid taxes, and public assistance than it could ever have cost to provide them with health coverage when they were young.

Even in the short term, shortchanging children’s health care won’t bring down the federal deficit. These health care cuts are being proposed because they’ll help pay for $1.4 trillion in new tax cuts – mostly for wealthy individuals and large corporations – over the next 10 years.

Rather than cut taxes for those who are already prosperous and secure, we should make sure the next generation grows up healthy and ready to learn more now and earn more later. All Americans want to invest and spend our money wisely, but choosing super-sized tax cuts for millionaires over regular medical checkups for our kids is the wrong choice – today and for our future.