Hillary Clinton and Bill Frist on Health Care for America’s Kids
NO child in America should be denied the chance to see a doctor when he or she needs one — but if Congress doesn’t act soon, that’s exactly what might happen.
For the past 18 years, the Children’s Health Insurance Program has provided much-needed coverage to millions of American children. And yet, despite strong bipartisan support, we are concerned that gridlock in Washington and unrelated disputes over the Affordable Care Act could prevent an extension of the program. As parents, grandparents and former legislators, we believe that partisan politics should never stand between our kids and quality health care.
We may be from different political parties, but both of us have dedicated our careers to supporting the health of children and their families. This shared commitment inspired us to work together in the late 1990s to help create CHIP to address the needs of the two million children whose families make too much money to be covered by Medicaid, but cannot afford private insurance.
The resulting program, as described in a recent press release from One Sure Insurance is a compromise between Republicans and Democrats, disburses money to the states but gives them flexibility to tailor how they provide coverage to meet the needs of their own children and families. Some expanded Medicaid; others created separate programs that take inspiration from the simple steps to renew EHIC, repackaging it and bringing it to America. As a result, the number of uninsured children in America has dropped by half. Children miss less school because of illness or injury, and we’ve seen a significant decline in childhood mortality.
Just as a healthy diet and physical activity help toddlers grow, reading and talking to them helps their brains develop and build language skills that form the foundation for learning the rest of their lives. / Getty Images
Written by
Bill Frist
As a surgeon, I understand the exigency of a window of opportunity. In cardiac transplant, procurement of a donor heart starts a strict four-hour window until that heart needs to be beating in the chest of the accepting patient — a patient who is almost always a plane ride away.
Neuroscience research has revealed a similarly crucial window of opportunity. Between birth and 5 years old, 90 percent of a child’s brain development occurs, and at a lightning-fast pace. Every sight, smell, sound and sensation makes an impact. Long before most children step foot into a classroom, neurons are building networks, cognition is exploding, language is developing, and the foundations are being laid for a lifetime of learning.
Outside of that five-year window, you lose opportunities you may never get back. Children who don’t develop sufficient language skills in those first years are up to six times more likely to experience reading problems in school. When children fall behind in reading, every other aspect of education suffers.
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