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Arizona To End Children’s Health Care Program
With Congress expected to vote on healthcare reform today, it is cruel irony that the Arizona Republic reports that Kids-Care, providing health coverage to 39,000 Arizona children of the working poor, has been eliminated. The program, part of a federal initiative, was cut in an attempt to balance the state’s budget. $56 million of the $74 million price tag was paid by the federal government, leaving only $18 million from the state to keep the program in operation.
“This summer, Arizona will become the only state in the nation that doesn’t provide healthcare coverage under a federal program to insure children of the working poor.” according to the Republic’s story. The program will end in Arizona on June 15.
Critics argue that cutting the program will result in loss of preventive care, increased emergency room visits for illness and injury and increased insurance premiums to cover the costs of the uninsured. Proponents of eliminating the now lost program say that cutting it was necessary to balance the state’s budget.
Thirteen year old Gaites Klein, whose MRI’s and daily medication following removal of a brain tumor were covered under the program, was not impressed with the lawmakers’ decision. He summed it up better than any adult, “If I did not have that program, I would not be talking to you right now. I would die.”
Other states, including California, have considered cutting the program, but none has done so to date. The program is designed to cover children whose families make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to purchase private health insurance. Participating families pay $10 to $70 a month for Kid’s-Care coverage.
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14 Responses to “Arizona To End Children’s Health Care Program”
Hey, they are only kids, right? And who do you want to suffer from this massive recession? The people whose unbridled greed caused it? Damn Commie.
Let's hear it. Privatize profits! Socialize losses! Safety net for the rich only!
So let me get this right, AZ only has to come up with 1/4 of the money to keep the entire program going and the lawmakers there have decided to cut it?? This is truly a pathetic and disconnected group of “deciders”.
I honestly don't think that the Republicans realize the damage that would (will?) happen to “middle America” if what they're trying to do (doing?) actually happened… or how their actions this last ten years will be viewed by future generations.
I'm personally against the bill as written… I believe that single payer is the only way to go BUT if any health care reform is to take place in the next 20 years it has to pass.
While I a no expert on Arizonan Politics ( Hell I know nothing about Arizona other than it's a red state in the middle of a desert), I lay you better than even money that the “deciders” are upper middle class white Republicans, and the recipients of this help are predominantly Black and Chicano Kids…
“This summer, Arizona will become the only state in the nation that doesn’t provide healthcare coverage under a federal program to insure children of the working poor.”
***********
Red states, you're all heart. I'd love to see a list of programs that survived the budget cut that have a higher priority than providing medical coverage for young poor children of slaving parents. Let me guess, I'll bet the same legislators who allowed this perversion are also the ones who insist on keeping abortion funding from happening? Demand that every baby is born into any conceivable situation and then the second it is dry, turn your back on it.
Let me guess. I'll bet tax cuts for the rich survived the killing floor in AZ's budget-balancing?
No state is obliged to do this.
Economic times are tough. Perpetual stimulus, everything we want forever, is unrealistic, kids.
In case you didn't know, the states are still hurting, and many misspent stimulus funds for current operating expenses. When the money runs out, the states will be in worse shape. California, which has been mismanaged for years, already is competing to be our own equivalent of Greece. Other states are in bad shape. That's the real story here — as well as the long-overdue need to redefine state-federal relations.
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?con…
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?con…
“AZ only has to come up with 1/4 of the money”
They're selling even their own capital building — they don't have any money to spare these days.
The states are in trouble these days (and the federal government is far from a great source of help).
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/State_budge…
Reckon I won't take that bet Don.
And that's what I meant by “disconnected”. All too often we are seeing critical decisions being made about the fate of people who are struggling by others who have almost nothing at stake. It's highly doubtful that any of these lawmakers will ever be in a similar situation or have to face the same challenges. Thier lives will be comfy and well-tended, and I'm sure they will find easy ways to salve their consciences (assuming they are in possession of such things).
Sounds a lot like a kid having killed both parents begging the court for mercy on account that he is an orphan…
Raising sales tax an 1/8 of one percent would cover that 18 million in not time…
Don, the states are hurting and too many people (including on this site) have neglected this.
Surely not all of you are so foolish as to expect the federal governmen to keep the states afloat indefinitely or always bail them out as bankruptcy becomes imminent.
As to the kids losing their insurance, over 300,000 adults are losing theirs, too. Context, context.
You people are idiots. The kids are just going to be covered under a different insurance for poor people called ACCESS. They give to all the welfare recipients in Arizona. Learn more about the state your criticizing.
Major League baseball teams find life is greener on cactus side of the fence
Apparently the State has money to give away to Billionaires, so that some Millionaires can run around a Stadium paid for by the Tax Payers…
How's that for context…
BTW Arizona has been run by Republicans for the last 40 odd years, so what does that say about Republican management?
“Why the move west? As the Watergate investigators learned, 'just follow the money.'' The five teams that went to Arizona wound up in new facilities that cost more than $200 million to build with much of the cost picked up by the state. Florida has not built any new spring training facilities since 1998, back when it enjoyed a 22-8 edge in teams over Arizona. [...]
How's that for context…”
You raise some points and we all know about not only sports teams but incentives given to large corporation (including automobile manufacturers in the South you love so much), but don't rush to read too much from this. Arizona is part of the nation growing more strongly in modern times than Florida. (Both states will continue to grow but will remain different.) It's not a surprise that teams would prefer Arizona, and it is not simply because of new facilities offered to them. If necessary, you need to visit both places to understand better.
“BTW Arizona has been run by Republicans for the last 40 odd years, so what does that say about Republican management?”
Pretty much GOP, though in modern times, not so, and you should know better. Napolitano is just the biggest example (along with the Arizona People's Republic).
I remember when I went there in the mid-1990s, a friend from Seattle asked, “How is it in that libertarian paradise? [I subsequently had all kinds of problems getting health insurance with a pre-existing condition.] How 'bout them Vipers? [local milita of note in the news then]“ (You'd love it, Don. A well-equipped motorcyclist in helmet- and clothing-disregarded Arizona is one who wears sunglasses and Topsiders to make shifting easier.)
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