Edwards points out: in Vermont, more than 5,000 children without insurance

[Meshuga]

EDWARDS PRESSES HEALTH PLAN
(10/20/03) U.S. Sen. John Edwards sought Monday to contrast his health care plan for children with those of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and his other Democratic presidential rivals.
Appearing at a forum hosted by a child advocacy group, Edwards stressed that his plan, unlike those of his major rivals, would require parents by law to enroll their children in either a government-subsided health plan or a private plan.

"When I say every child, I mean every child," the North Carolina Democrat said at a forum hosted by the Every Child Matters Education Fund on the campus of the University of New Hampshire.

Edwards pointed out that in Vermont, more than 5,000 children remain without insurance, according to a 2001 study by the Kaiser Foundation.

On the campaign trial, Dean, who leads in New Hampshire polls, touts his record in enrolling nearly every child in Vermont. He said during an appearance Sunday that Americans should not be forced to buy insurance, however.

Edwards credited Dean with doing "good work." But, he said, "in my case, I'm taking about every single child, 100 percent, covered by law."

http://www.newsobserver.com/edwards/

[joeybee12]

1. Yeah, then why didn't you pass this in the Senate???

Don't get me wrong, I basically like Edwards, but I am so sick of platforms!!!!!!!!!

Goddamn it, the Dems rolled over and died these past three years--and just because a candidate now proposes this legislation, why the f**k do they think we're gonna believe they'll ever get it passed???!!!

[sandnsea]

4. CHIP

The program Howard Dean is using to proclaim his wonderful coverage of children while at the same time smearing the Senators who gave it to him as cockroaches. A single Senator can only do so much, one person cannot control the entire legislative process. It was specifically set up to make sure that couldn't happen.

And why the hell didn't Howard Dean do it in Vermont and since he didn't, what makes you think he'll do it now???

[AP]

5. Why didn't Dean pass this when he was Governor?

It cuts both ways.

They're talking about their policies.

Whether they can work them through Congress through dilligent politics and convincing the American public to press their legislators to enact their policies is another matter, but it doesn't mean they shouldn't be explaining what policies they stand for.

[loyalsister]

22. Thank you!

Edwards, and especially Kerry and Gephardt have had a hell of a lot of time to prove commitment to health care by introducing legislation. They could have introduced something for universal HC long ago. Now that they're running for president we are expected to believe they are committed to this just because they say so. I don't buy it. Kerry and Gep have even had majorities to work with.

[Larkspur]

2. and when translated by the Repuke Congress will mean that only 5,000

children, of the upper class, will have insurance.

[LuminousX]

3. Edward's Plan

I haven't read through it all, but for those who are truly trying to compare candidates and not be a part of tearing other candidates apart, you may want to evaluate it for yourself.

Reference Link - Edward's Health Plan

[LuminousX]

8. Edward's Plan - a few comments

1. It reaches 100% by requiring parents to carry insurance on children. Even with the, in my opinion, complicated tax credit system, some will fall through the cracks and will be faced with the enormous burdon of paying for insurance or violating the law. I am nearly certain I know which will occur. Those unable to afford it can work through the bureaucracy to get additional help, but there is no indication what that help will actually be.

Require Parents to Cover Their Children: Under the Edwards Plan, parents will get affordable credits and easy access to insurance. If parents find they still cannot afford coverage due to extraordinary circumstances, they will be able to apply for additional help. But parents will have a responsibility to cover their children.

2. There isn't much discussion on how this plan will be paid for, though he does go far enough to make sure to say states will not be held liable for the costs of the program:

Fully Fund New State Costs: States are facing the most significant budget crisis since World War II. Under Edwards' Plan, states will be held harmless for any new costs, including startup and administrative costs. Since this new program simply builds on top of the existing CHIP and Medicaid programs, states will be required to continue their current levels of contribution for children's coverage and subject to maintenance of effort requirements for CHIP and Medicaid.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

12. "Require Parents to Cover Their Children"

An interesting proposal. It may have merit. Certainly requiring kids to have coverage and consequently access to preventative care is a laudable goal and could reduce overall costs in the long run.

Edwards is worthy of respect and I like a lot of his ideas. It is not as coercive as it sounds at first either: "Parents who do not provide coverage will receive a warning, and parents who still do not cover their children will face a reduction in tax benefits equal to the cost of CHIP. Their children will be automatically enrolled in the appropriate program." (http://www.johnedwards2004.com/healthcare-fact-sheet.asp)

Kerry focuses on bringing down overall costs in the healthcare system by containing catastrophic costs:

First, my plan will stop spiraling health care premiums by containing catastrophic costs so that health care is more affordable for all of us. Only four-tenths of one percent of private insurance claims are in excess of $50,000. However, these claims account for 20 percent of medical expenses for private insurers. Under my plan, the Federal government will cover a portion of these catastrophic claims - 75 percent - for companies that provide affordable coverage for all their workers, guarantee they'll pass back the savings to their employees, and put in place preventive care and health promotion programs that can keep more people healthier longer - which is one of the best ways to keep costs under control. By covering a significant portion of catastrophic costs in this way, we will reduce average premiums by up to 10 percent.
http://www.johnkerry.com/news/speeches/spc_2003_0516.html

Well, I think that is one of the more innovative proposals in the Kerry health care plan. A lot of our candidates have good ideas, and I hope we elect one who can actually get a good plan through Congress -- I don't want to see a repeat of the Clinton health care reform fiasco.

[indigo32]

17. Certainly Edwards is worthy of respect

I'm not sure this idea is the smartest though...sounds fairly beaurocratically messy.

I very much LIKE the Kerry idea you mention.

[DocSavage]

33. Forced to buy

Why, if I have the wherewith all to pay cash for medical care for my family should I have to buy insurance? Even if I were an average person making say 40K in VT why should I have to get the insurance from the state. Where is my abaility to make a choice for my own family?

[hobbes159]

6. ok, so 5000 kids don't have insurance in VT.

That's still the lowest percentage in the US.

Check out some stats:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/hlthins/liuc01.html

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

24. Texas is off the map in that table!

[lastliberalintexas]

41. Yep

And we just kicked about 250,000 more children off of CHIP. Yep, that's 250,000- NOT a typo. Because unlike Vermont, we've been running a deficit under Shrubbie Boy and Goodhair.


I like Edwards a great deal, but his program doesn't guarantee 100% coverage either. Although I support Dean overall, Dennis has the only truly universal health care system that would achieve 100% coverage- of both kids and adults.

[MadMan]

7. How many children are there in Vermont?

Only 5,000 uninsured?? Wow! I'm impressed Dean!

Why Edwards thinks comparing his pipe dream to those kind of actual results is beyond me. And why FORCE parents to insure their children? Sounds like a loser for Edwards. And can you imagine the field day the repukes would have with this? Point to Dean.

[LuminousX]

9. I don't believe GOP would have field day

I do believe it would be difficult to pass and without any clear indication of how it would be paid for, especially if no costs are passed to the states, I'm not sure it will go very far in Congress.

I'm not thrilled with the 'legal requirement to spend money for insurance' since I think the current insurance system is corrupt and near pointless and that just sounds like the government telling people they need to give money to these corrupt pointless corporations.. That is my personal opinion, of course.

At least it is a plan and isn't utopian in nature. It won't reach 100% though. He is fulling himself. Just because you legally require people to carry insurance doesn't mean they will.

[MadMan]

10. Don't underestimate the 'pukes!

They'll call it Hillary Care Redux and trot out Joe Mid-West Farmer and say "this poor hard working man would be in jail under Edwards plan."

[LuminousX]

11. Well, the last part

happens to be something *I* would say and is one of the things I dislike about the plan.

[AP]

19. Why force them to insure kids? Because we force them to educate them too,

and this is every bit as important. Most kids are educated through their parents. But if their parents aren't covered by insurance, this is a requirement for them to take healthy insurance as seriously as making sure they go to school.

The other part of this program which nobody mentions is that Edwards is going to require insurance companies to provide low cost plans to cover these kids, and I believe that he's not offering them a government subsidy to do it. In other words, they'll have to take the costs out of their profits. (I think that's right.)

I think there is going to be exapanded Medicaid (medicare?) to cover poor kids so that nobody slips through the cracks.

[dsc]

30. One isn't required to pay for public education

and under this plan one would be required to pay for insurance. To take one example would Scientologists be required to insure their children despite the fact they won't use medical care? Also just how low would this insurance's cost be?

[pruner]

38. don't you mean Christian Scientists?

as far as I know Scientologists don't avoid medical care… though I may be wrong since I'm not a member of the cult, or reader of Dianetics.

[dsc]

40. I thought they were one in the same

in any case I do mean Christian Scientists.

[dsc]

29. He has insured 96% of Vermont children

that makes a ration of 24 to 1 which yields 125,000 total children of whom 120,000 are insured.

[Castilleja]

13. Why require someone to buy health insurance?

What benefits would there be, besides the obvious? I would like to hear candidates for office, and any politician for that matter refer to health coverage for "people", not just children. It is important for all people to have coverage.

[pw]

14. So you're going to put the parent in jail

if they don't enroll their children in a health plan? Seems kinda extreme to me.

Why can't the kids just plain be covered?

[LuminousX]

16. They wouldn't be

but seeing they are already impoverished, they'll have to seek more time off work to go wait in various bureaucratic offices to get the 'special assistance' alluded to in Edward's plan.

More paperwork, more bureaucratic finagling, when all the person wants is to be able to take his/her child to the doctor and get a cough taken care of.

[AP]

20. It'll be the same sort of penalty they'd get if they didn't educated kids

This is just as important.

[killbotfactory]

15. Is this part of the 3% who are eligable for insurance?

But don't have it for various reasons?

[CMT]

18. nearly every child is covered

the record of Vermont is better than most states including Edwards North Carolina. Could it be better? sure--I would be happy if 100% were covered, but Dean made great progress.

[AP]

21. I think I read that % insured barely changed under Dean.

It was high when he was elected -- 93.7%? -- and it was high when he left -- 94.1%? -- and the difference might have been attributable to the improved economy?

What we're talking about here is whether any new policies worked. If Dean said his policy was supposed to insure every child, and it only reduced the number of people not covered by .4% out of 6.3%, then that's only a 6.349% improvement.

Some fixed income funds get a better guaranteed return on investment than that.

[sandnsea]

26. The difference was SCHIP

It was 90.5% in 1987 and was somewhere around 96% when he left. The difference was the CHIP program and waivers he got to raise the income level for coverage. Oregon had done the same thing prior to Dean and our health plan is having financial problems, just like Vermont's is projected to have. Alabama went from a 78% coverage rate to a 91% rate, that's an amazing improvement. Federal programs had more to do with Vermont's health plan than Howard Dean did. The only way to fix the problems that are going to creep up is with a better federal plan.

[AP]

27. Thanks for the clarification.

I stand corrected on the numbers...and the cause of the improvement.

[killbotfactory]

28. Um, SCHIP was in the late 90's

Dean started expansion of coverage in the early 90's

Dr. Dynasaur has its origins in a state program introduced in 1989 to cover children age 6 and under who did not qualify for Medicaid. In 1992 it was expanded to cover children under age 18, and in 1998 the eligibility threshold was increased from 225% of the federal poverty level to 300% of poverty level. According to the OVHA, Dr. Dynasaur currently covers about 56,000 people.

http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/dean/dean0702/drdynasaur.html

The 1998 increase in coverage would be from the SCHIP program.

[sandnsea]

34. Which is where the jump came

Without it, and federal waivers, Dean wouldn't have a platform to run on. He'd just have a Medicaid program with a little better coverage because Vermont just doesn't have the kinds of etrenched poverty problems larger states have.

[dsc]

31. I live in Ohio

we are in the nation, we had no improvement, can you explain why?

[sandnsea]

35. Sure you did

Went from an 86% coverage rate to a 92% coverage rate. About the same percentage increase as Vermont.

http://www.odh.state.oh.us/Data/Insurance/InsRpts/HICov2001.htm
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:CTJNwHvgjYIJ:www.odh.state.oh.us/Data/OFHSurv/OFHSDB2.pdf+ohio+children+insurance+coverage&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[dsc]

36. That isn't what this says

you have to be very careful with Taft he his very good with weasel words.

Children’s Health Insurance Coverage in Ohio, 1999-2001 reports that Medicaid coverage for children increased significantly while job-based coverage declined. Eight percent of Ohio children were without coverage in both 1999 and 2001. Although most low-income children were covered by Medicaid in 2001, 15 percent were uninsured, and two-thirds of all uninsured Ohio children lived in low-income families. The disparity in uninsured rates between White and Black children narrowed substantially between 1999 and 2001. Adolescents were most likely and pre-school children least likely to be without coverage.

end of quote

It said that 8% of children didn't have insurance in both 1999 and 2001. That isn't the same, necessarily as how many were uninsured in each of those years. I was insured in 99 but not in 2001 so I wouldn't be counted as uninsured by that measure but, of course I am.

[dsc]

37. You just can't trust Taft

This is what he did and thus what you ended up doing.

Here is the pdf file from which Taft got his figures for the 1999 and 2001 figures you used.

In 1999 and 2001, 8 percent of Ohio children were reported to be without health insurance
for the entire year. There were 201,000 Ohio children without health coverage in 2001.

End of quote.

Note that 8% figure (yielding your 92% figure) is of children who went the entire year without coverage.


Here is where you got your 86% figure (14% uninsured)

2About one in seven Ohio children (14% or 412,000) experienced a period without health insurance during the past year.b6% of Ohio children (161,000) were uninsured for at least one full year, while 4% (105,000) were uninsured for at least three years or never insured. bRefers to the 12-month period prior to the date of interview. Interviews were conducted from January through August 1998.

end of quote

Now you ended up, thanks to Taft's deception, comparing people who went the entire year without coverage in 1999 to those who went without insurance for some part of the year in 1997-1998. That is an apples to oranges comparison. What happens if you do apples to apples is that in 1997 we had 4% go without insurance for the entire year while in 2001 it was 8%. That is an increase in uninsured or a decrease in insured from 96 to 92. Ie just what I said had happened. Again, for any Taft inspired or written thing you have to look for weasel words.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

23. How many are uninsured in North Carolina?

[AP]

25. If Edwards were governor of NC, that would be relevant.

You can ask, what hasn't Edwards done to help liberalism floursih in NC as a NC Senator, and the answer might be, "not much."

You can ask, what, as a lawyer in private practice did he not do to help his injured clients recover for the damages to their health caused by negligent corporations and insurance companies refusing to pay up, and the answer would also be "not much."

[KaraokeKarlton]

32. Most of those uninsured kids ARE eligible for insurance

But just aren't enrolled for whatever reason.

[genius]

39. Thank you Edwards

I hope he got a lot of press on this one. Dean's been lying a lot about the health care coverage in Vermont and everyone knows what Edwards says is true but the candidates have generally stayed away from pointing it out.

[surfermaw]

42. Universal health care..single payer...is what is needed

And the man who pushes hard for such, will be the winner, as Clinton was ...some poorer republicans want health care as much as the average democrat dose. I poll( small Poll average guys to small business Republican) before Clinton elction...and the republican guys were for the Universal Coverage more so than the damocrat.