Bush policies hurt kids: pediatrician group

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Three dozen eminent pediatricians and social workers attacked the Bush administration on Wednesday for policies they said leave too many children without health insurance.

The doctors, including some well-known authors of manuals for parents and professionals, said they were taking the unusual step because they were worried about the state of U.S. health care. 

"The Bush administration’s policies are moving us away from effective and long-standing federal commitments that improved the health of children, commitments proudly initiated and supported by previous Republican and Democratic presidents,” according to the statement signed by 36 child experts.

“If not reversed, these ill-advised tax and budget policies will erode decades of hard-won health gains for children, while still leaving unaddressed such critical problems as child abuse, mental health, and alcohol and other drug abuse.”

The statement echoes concerns expressed by many health professionals—that the lack of a coherent U.S. health plan is leaving too many people without health care. This is costing more in the long run, they argue, as such people tend to get costly treatment in emergency rooms once their health problems reach a crisis.

The doctors, who include bestselling writer Dr. T. Berry Brazelton of Harvard University and former American Academy of Pediatrics president Dr. Joel Alpert of Boston University, were sponsored by Vote Kids, a nonprofit group that rates members of Congress based on their votes on child-related issues.

They endorsed President Bush’s Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

“We embrace Senator Kerry’s straightforward goal: every child, indeed every American, should have the same affordable health care that is available to every member of Congress and senior government official,” they said.

GOING WITHOUT INSURANCE

Census bureau figures show 45 million Americans had no health insurance coverage in 2003. Another nonprofit group, Families USA, said this week that 85.2 million people went without health insurance for some time during 2003 and 2004.

The pediatrician group said the uninsured include 27 million children --despite programs like the federally backed State Child Health Insurance Program, which they said has suffered due to the Bush administration’s tax and budget policies.

“In the president’s home state of Texas alone, nearly 150,000 children of working class families have been dropped from the State Child Health Insurance Program, leaving them without any insurance.”

But Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson defended the SCHIP program, saying he would use $660 million left over from previous years to cover any gaps in state funds.

“No state will be left short and no child will lose coverage due to a shortfall, period,” he wrote in a letter on Wednesday to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

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