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The Kaiser
Family Foundation © 5/3/07
By Staff Writer
Two newspapers on Wednesday
published opinion pieces on issues related to healthcare coverage.
Ronald Brownstein, Los
Angeles Times: The number of uninsured U.S. children "is a stain on
the nation," Times columnist Brownstein writes in an opinion piece.
According to Brownstein, "Until recently, children had been the
exception in an otherwise bleak health care story of rising costs and
declining access," but "with health care costs pressing their
budgets, states squeezed services" and less children are now enrolled in
state health care programs. In addition, "because employer-based
coverage for kids continued to erode, the number of uninsured kids
rose," Brownstein continues. The success of county initiatives in California to provide
children with coverage shows what an investment in SCHIP "could buy for
the rest of the nation," he writes. Brownstein concludes, "Millions
of other strapped American parents" would benefit "if Washington makes the
right decisions in the months ahead" by approving Democrats' proposal to
increase SCHIP funding to $50 billion over the next five years (Brownstein,
Los Angeles Times, 5/2).
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.),
Boston Globe: The U.S. must take the "next crucial step" in health
care reform by "building a common-sense partnership between employers, families
and the government to share the costs of the sickest among us," Kerry
writes in a Globe opinion piece. Kerry this week will introduce legislation
that would "make government a partner in helping businesses with the
heavy financial burden" of chronically ill employees. The legislation
calls for reinsurance, through which employers would offer their workers
preventive care and quality health coverage, and the government would
reimburse costs associated with the care of workers who use more than $50,000
annually in health care costs. Kerry writes that with reinsurance,
"health insurance premiums for all of us will go down -- by
approximately 10%." He concludes that reinsurance " will lay the
groundwork for achieving our ultimate goal: health care coverage for every
single American" (Kerry, Boston Globe, 5/2).
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