State Children’s Health Insurance Program
This topic has received a lot of attention in the news recently as this program expired on Semptember 30, 2007 and is currently under legislation to reauthorize the program. John K. Iglehart wrote this interesting article about this current political battle on September 6, 2007 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Last week President Bush vetoed the House portion of the reauthoriztion releasing this statement. A few days later Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada fired back with a statement of his own. Along with the war in Iraq, health care is one of the more hotly debated topics in our country today. You can learn more about the actual legislation here.
Census Data released last year showed that nearly 47 million Americans, with over 8 million of them being children, are without health care coverage. These are some disturbing numbers and with the government’s failure to act, these numbers can only be expected to rise as a number of states are facing shortfalls in their federally funded health care programs with the new fiscal year starting at the beginning of this month.
This becomes even more alarming with recent statistics showing that employer health insurance premiums are rising at double the current rate of inflation. So while relief might not be in sight for those 47 million Americans at least they will be able to say welcome to the club.
