Sandy Oxley: Ohio needs to require immunizations for children
LimaOhio.com contributing columnist
At Voices for Ohio’s Children, we do exactly what our name implies:
we raise our voice for Ohio’s nearly 3 million children. We advocate for
policies to ensure that all children become safe, educated, healthy,
connected, and employable and we strongly support passage of House Bill
536, which requires immunizations for children in child care and
preschool settings as a way to improve the health of Ohio’s children.
It’s hard to believe, but Ohio is the only state in the nation without such a law...
Read the full article here.
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Sandy's Refelections on the 5th Anniversary of C.H.I.P.
Remember when Congress used to get things done? Today’s headlines make it feel like a distant memory, but it wasn’t so long ago that Democrats and Republicans in Washington worked together to help real people with real problems. In fact, five years ago this month, Congress passed and President Obama signed legislation to help uninsured children by extending and improving the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). That law will soon expire, and what Congress does (or doesn’t do) to help is up to us.
CHIP, called Healthy Start in Ohio, has been an astounding success. In the wake of a recession that cost millions of parents their employer-sponsored health insurance, the uninsured rate among America’s children has actually gone down, thanks largely to CHIP. Right here in Ohio, a tough economy has driven child poverty up, but the number of uninsured children has actually gone down.
That means that when hard-working families face tough times, children can still count on getting the preventive care they need to stay healthy and focused in school. And because health care costs are a big driver of bankruptcies and foreclosures, covering kids through Healthy Start helps families battered by the economy hang on until they can get back on their feet. And Healthy Start brings federal funds into Ohio’s economy, protecting local jobs in doctors' offices and hospitals here in Columbus.
And that’s just good sense. With Healthy Start, a little girl can keep her asthma under control for a few hundred dollars a year. But if she remains uninsured and a full-blown asthma attack requires hospitalization, the costs quickly jump into the thousands. And if her parents are unemployed, we all pay – through higher insurance premiums to offset hospitals’ costs for uncompensated care.
CHIP works for children and for all of us. That’s why the Affordable Care Act essentially left CHIP untouched. The simple fact is that the ACA’s centerpiece “exchange” marketplaces aren’t focused on covering uninsured kids. And they don’t combine pediatrician-recommended benefits packages for children with out-of-pocket costs parents can afford. That’s what CHIP and Medicaid do very well. It’s what they have effectively and cost-effectively done for more than 15 years.
This success story is at risk, because most of CHIP’s funding will expire next year unless Congress acts first. And, as recent headlines show, Congress has a habit of not acting until the last minute – if then. But the last minute won’t work in this case, because CHIP is a federal-state partnership, and state governments need time to plan their budgets. If Congress waits, state governments will start freezing CHIP enrollment or even ending their CHIP programs. It’s happened in the past when funding was in question. And it’s beginning to happen right now, with at least one state already considering legislation to end their CHIP programs after 2015, because they expect inaction from Washington.
But we can all help to protect Healthy Start for Ohio kids. Let Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman and area congressional representatives know that business-as-usual won’t cut it when children’s health is on the line. Tell them that legislation to extend and strengthen CHIP must be a top priority for 2014.
Healthy Start was the bipartisan idea of a Republican-controlled Congress and a Democratic president. And just five years ago, Congress worked together to protect and improve Healthy Start. Now more than ever, Healthy Start provides a much-needed reminder that America’s lawmakers can rise above ideology to make life better for real children in real families right here in Ohio. Let’s urge our leaders in Washington to do it again.