Mome reads Mommy, My daughter's way to spell it when she was younger... It stuck. My son calls me Mome... just like it looks. I now sign all my notes to them "Love, Mome". It's our inside secret and makes them smile. I always want them to smile.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Health Insurance For Kids~ A Moral Issue

We are fortunate that my husband has a job that provides insurance for the whole family. I would be willing to give up insurance for myself, if I had to, to insure the kids were covered. Not everyone is this lucky.

I wouldn't know where to begin in researching insurance for my children. With companies as easy to find as typing wholesaleinsurance.net, how does one know which companies provide the most for their money? How much time is needed to research and qualify for the right one?

A study recently released by John Hopkins Hospital and found reported by Science Daily, states:
"Thousands of children die needlessly each year because we lack a health system that provides them health insurance. This should not be," says co-investigator Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., director of Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins and medical director of the Center for Innovations in Quality Patient Care.

They also stated that uninsured children are presented more often to the emergency rooms with advanced stages of disease due to lack of insurance and ability to get early treatment from pediatricians.

I could not imagine watching my child suffer because I could not afford to take them to a doctor. It happens all around us. As a child, my father left his job that provided the family with insurance to become self employed. We didn't have insurance. I remember slipping on a rug in our foyer and slamming into our front door. Luckily I had put my hand up to protect my head. I sliced my middle finger on the metal piece at the bottom of the door. The cut went to the bone. My mom wrapped it in paper towel, several times, until the bleeding stopped. Bending it would cause it to split open and start bleeding again since it was directly on the knuckle. It took forever to completely heal and I am fortunate it never got infected. It breaks my heart to think of this happening to another child, without insurance, who could end up losing a digit or a hand due to infection and lack of treatment.

Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., director of Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins and medical director of the Center for Innovations in Quality Patient Care says it best. "In a country as wealthy as ours, the need to provide health insurance to the millions of children who lack it is a moral, not an economic issue."

4 comments:

  1. I'm think in Illinois that all kids are covered under the state if their parents don't have health insurance. I think it's under Medicaid? Would have to check to be sure. I remember when my friend had her daughter and was uninsured, the state picked up the tab for the mother and the daughter for the entire birth and hospital stay.

    As a person who grew up uninsured until I was an adult and saw my share of emergency room and hospital visits, I know all too well what the impact can be when you don't have insurance. And as a parent of 3 whose husband was unemployed without insurance for 6 months, I know how quickly one can go into debt when injuries and illnesses arise.

    The question isn't for me IF we should have healthcare, but how best to go about providing funding for it. Our economy is in such shambles and the cost so high its so hard to wrap my head around. I definitely believe we need some reform. Personally, it makes sense to me that we focus on insuring the uninsured. When a family has a budget issue, it usually sticks to the bare necessities. As budgets and funding allow, then it can get expanded. That approach seems to make sense to me.

    My mom works at a hospital and they turn no one away. As a result of the increase in so many charity cases in the past couple of years they are being forced to reduce the amount of vacation time given to employees of the hospital... just one of the benefits that are being reduced to cover the uninsured.

    She's worked for 20 years at this hospital and close to retirement, but she must continue to work to provide benefits for her husband who has cancer and has been unemployeed more than a year now after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. One shot per month alone is $6K.

    Their story is just one of millions across our country. It's just a mess.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Health insurance is important not only for the kids but also for all of us. I got this informative post on first day of my visit at this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  3. as e-commerce web site said. I am totally agree with that thing. I didn't realise this thing untill i ment with accident last month. That time my mediclam was finished.
    and the treatment is too expensive.

    so i am suggesting you to all...please get insurance quickly. thanks for sharing information with us.

    ReplyDelete
  4. as e-commerce web site said. I am totally agree with that thing. I didn't realise this thing untill i ment with accident last month. That time my mediclam was finished.
    and the treatment is too expensive.

    so i am suggesting you to all...please get insurance quickly. thanks for sharing information with us.

    ReplyDelete

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