(CA) Program for Seriously Ill Children Faces Cuts

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-children8mar08,1,6942312.story?coll=la-home-local

Tucked away in the state public health bureaucracy is a program that for 77 years has quietly cared for and saved the lives of the sickest of children — from premature infants as tiny as kittens to youngsters fighting brain cancer and other catastrophic illnesses.

Because California Children's Services assists youngsters with ailments that are not only severe but also can also wipe out a family's savings, it has been virtually immune from political intervention. But that may soon end.

Under budget cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Children's Services is targeted for a first-ever cap on enrollment and for imposition of a waiting list. Treatment would be withheld, at least temporarily, from a monthly average of 1,256 children — mostly from low- and middle-income families, many in the country illegally.

Alarmed supporters say the governor's plan would delay or deny children's access to highly specialized medical care and could have grave consequences.

"They may die while they are waiting for the care they need," Alan Lewis, a pediatric cardiologist at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, said in a recent interview.

[Disturbed]

1. Typics Repugs

This is their MO. Serve the wealthy. Dump on the poor.

[indepat]

2. Every Californian of voting age should have seen the inevitability

of this eventuality.

[L.A.dweller]

3. This is where i get confused.

Will the $15 billion bond be allocated to services such as these??

[Hell Hath No Fury]

4. NO!

That $15 billion bond was to essentially pay off $15 billion in debt we owe.

NOT ONE CENT goes to an increase in any service. In other words, we exchanged one debt for another.

GGRRRRRRR.

[L.A.dweller]

5. Thanks for the reply.

I did not vote for the bond measure largely in part because I do not back the Gropinator. In addition, i don't understand why we should pay off a debt with more debt.

So what is being done to back social service programs??????????????

[damnraddem]

6. 'Why, of course I have a heart,' says Governator ...

'I know for a fact that they built that into me.'