If Canada, England, and France can figure this stuff out, why can't we, America? ($$$)?
"Universal health goal fades in California; Many children may lose coverage" by Jordan Rau, Los Angeles Times | August 25, 2008
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California's promising strides toward extending medical coverage to all its children, a longtime goal of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and one advocates believed was in reach by decade's end, has stalled - and thousands of children are in danger of losing insurance.
The trend is likely to further destabilize California's already shaky healthcare system and the erosion of employer-based insurance, which was leaving more adults without coverage.
But legislative budget negotiators this year have decided to increase premiums to the state's Healthy Families program, which pays for medical care for more than 850,000 children of low-income workers who are above the federal poverty line.
The state estimates that the parents of 19,000 children will end up dropping out of the program by next July because of the $2 or $3 monthly increases. A family with three or more children, earning between two and 2 1/2 times the federal poverty level of $24,800 a year, would see their monthly premium rise to $51.
Lawmakers also have decided to require the parents of 3.4 million Californians who are below the federal poverty line to renew their Medi-Cal health coverage every six months. The Schwarzenegger administration expects that rule will pare Medi-Cal rolls by about 196,000 children over the next two years.
Why make it harder to keep health insurance? WTF?
It is almost as if they DON'T WANT YOU despite the TALK!
Same thing in Massachusetts!
State officials say some of those families would leave the program anyway because they moved or found jobs, but advocates believe many who are entitled to the program will fail to file the paperwork and will fall off the rolls. The changes to subsidized or free health programs come as private health initiatives that pay for the care of children are running out of money, causing them to limit the number they cover.
Altogether, "thousands of California children are likely to lose health insurance coverage they now have," said E. Richard Brown, the director of UCLA's research center. The privately run initiatives exist in 30 counties, arranging medical care for children who either are not legal residents or whose families earn slightly more than the threshold for public programs. Enrollment in the initiatives has dropped by 8,000 in the last two years.
But if you say picking up the tab for illegals is bankrupting us, you are a racist according to the agenda-pushing MSM!
So YOU can't get health care, 'murkn citizen, but the illegals can!!!?
--more--"
Trillions for wars, billions for, you know, after a while, you get sick of typing it.
