http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

NEW YORK STATE
Panel to address child health care
BY SARA FOSS Gazette Reporter

   There are 400,000 uninsured children in New York.
   In the fall, the state plans to begin chipping away at that number by reaching out to uninsured children and enrolling them in Child Health Plus, New York’s health insurance plan for kids. Ultimately, the goal of the outreach effort is to make sure every child in the state has medical coverage, something Gov. Eliot Spitzer called for in his inaugural address in January and has described as a priority in other speeches.
   Last week, Spitzer created a “Children’s Cabinet” to advance programs and policies that benefit children, including universal health care. The group, which comprises agency heads, held its first meeting last week.
   The governor’s budget for 2007-08 expands eligibility for Child Health Plus, which provides comprehensive health care, including doctor visits, hospital stays and prescription drugs. The plan now covers children in families with income up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level; the expanded plan would include households at or below 400 percent of the federal poverty level.
   But expanding coverage is only half the battle. Many of these children are already eligible for Child Health Plus under existing guidelines, and the reason they aren’t enrolled has more to do with the cumbersome enrollment process and a lack of awareness about the program than not qualifying for insurance. One of the first tasks of the Children’s Cabinet will be to develop and implement a plan for enrolling uninsured children.
   In remarks earlier this year, Spitzer said: “It turns out the implementation date of the expansion coincides with back-to-school time this fall, so it’s a great time to partner with schools on enrolling children. But our outreach program won’t just be limited to schools. If we are to enroll every uninsured child, we will need the help of churches, community groups, businesses, nonprofi t organizations, social networks and every other institution that touches the lives of these children.”
   The implementation campaign will be spearheaded by the state Department of Health.
PLAN OF ACTION
   One group, the American Academy of Pediatrics, District II, New York State, wants to make sure Spitzer follows through on his promise to provide coverage for uninsured children. Last week, the organization released a plan, “Building Blocks for a ‘Medical Home’ for Every Child,” that outlines steps the state should take to create a universal health care system for children. “Until the comprehensive AAP proposal is implemented, the Child Health Plus benefit package should continue as the standard for all children’s coverage in the state,” the plan states.
   “The governor said he wanted universal health care for kids in January; now it’s June,” said Elie Ward, director of policy and advocacy for the American Academy of Pediatrics, District II. “We’re on the sidelines being cheerleaders. This report is kind of an energizer. It’s to say, ‘OK, we’ve talked enough.’ ”
   A key element of the AAP plan is providing a “medical home” — a clinic or office where a child regularly gets health care — for every child in the state. Ward described a medical home as a place parents bring their children for their wellbaby and well-child visits, immunizations and acute care. The goal is a comprehensive benefits package focused on the needs of children at various ages.
   “The reality is that children are not just little adults,” Ward said. “They have different types of health needs.”
   The American Academy of Pediatrics supports universal health care for adults and believes a program that provides universal coverage for children can serve as a model on how to provide medical coverage for all adults. “Why don’t we do this with children and see what we learn?” Ward said. “Children are the least expensive cohort to provide health care to.”
SHORTCOMINGS
   The AAP plan outlines defi ciencies in the state’s health care system for children. Two big problems, it says, are inadequate numbers of mental health and dental providers in New York. This means that even if a child has health insurance, it can be difficult to find decent mental-health and dental care, particularly in rural areas. “Families must be able to access this high quality care for their children without traveling hundreds of miles or waiting months for medical attention,” the report says.
   The report proposes a number of steps to make it easier, including encouraging pediatricians to obtain additional training so they are capable of performing behavioral assessments and offering mental-health treatment services in their offices, increasing the number of school psychologists, social workers and trained counselors at schools and creating a reimbursement program that encourages pediatricians to offer dental sealants and varnishes in a primary-care setting.
   The report also says that New York has one of the lowest reimbursement rates in the country for pediatricians who treat low-income children; this disparity makes it difficult for the state to recruit and retain pediatric subspecialists.
   A pediatrician gets $30 for a new patient visit for a child covered by Medicaid, while the median commercial insurance reimbursement for the same visit is $115.
   Christine Pritchard, a spokeswoman for Spitzer, said the Children’s Cabinet will review the AAP report.
   The Children’s Cabinet is chaired by Director of State Operations Olivia Golden and co-chaired by Deputy Secretary for Health and Human Services Dennis Whalen and Deputy Secretary for Education Manny Rivera.
   One of the group’s other priorities is ensuring that prekindergarten is available and accessible to all state children.
   Last week, the state awarded $13.2 million in grants to health-care institutions that agreed to sponsor school-based health clinics.
   “These clinics provide easy access to health-care professionals for checkups and treatments without missing classes and without parents needing time off from work,” Spitzer said in a statement. “This is especially important for children who need routine treatment for asthma, diabetes and other chronic conditions.”
   Locally, Glens Falls Hospital received $55,012 and Whitney M. Young Community Health Center in Albany received $64,098.
   New York’s school-based health center program was established in 1981; it is the largest program of its type in the country.  

  
  
  

The reason why some of these kids don't have this 'child health plus' is not because their parents haven't heard about it, cause it's been all over tv.....it's becasue in most cases, the parents don't really give a damn. Just talk to some social workers. The stories are toe curling.

So now we as taxpayers, who work are a**** if to fend for ourselves and famiies, (called responsibility) have to foot the bill for parents who don't really care. Am I missing something here?

New York State is high in taxes because everyone with any money is leaving this state. Leaving only some of the working people to pay for all of these government programs. New York State is like a welfare state. I believe that is why there are so many public jobs now. Businesses are leaving and no new ones coming in and the people who do work are leaving either because there are no good paying jobs or they are just too over taxed.

NYS is going to be in extreme financial distress in the very near future because there's no way that the people left in this state will be able to fund all the state sponsored welfare programs that they've created. It's time to start cutting back on the welfare funding and get all the pork out of our state budget and get the taxes back down where they should be.

First we have to get the already in office, elected officials out and start new. Although I guess we just did that didn't we? So as we can see now that we have a die hard, liberal democrat as govener and a democratic state which means only more government programs, more public sector jobs and higher taxes. When are people going to smarten up here? I guess when they say that a government is the reflection of it's people....how true...how true!

When they talk about educating our illegal/legal immigrants, perhaps we should start educating our home grown first!!

Quoted from bumblethru

The reason why some of these kids don't have this 'child health plus' is not because their parents haven't heard about it, cause it's been all over tv.....it's becasue in most cases, the parents don't really give a damn. Just talk to some social workers. The stories are toe curling.

So now we as taxpayers, who work are a**** if to fend for ourselves and famiies, (called responsibility) have to foot the bill for parents who don't really care. Am I missing something here?

Was it toe curling before we had insurance companies????

Actually, some parents are priced out of the market for Child Health Plus.  All depends on the income.  YOU go from getting it free, to paying $9 / kid / month, to $15, to the full price, which I think is over $115. / month / kid.  

Quoted from senders

Was it toe curling before we had insurance companies????

There certainly is a tug-of-war here for the "health benefits" between the elderly and the kids......and the politicians love to bandstand....folks pay attention, universal health care is coming.....VERY LARGE managed care corps are moving in and pricing out (or politically getting) the VERY LARGE REGIONAL AREAS.....performance is not an issue at this point and when the state/feds enforce it, it certainly drives folks (at the rubber meets the road positions) out of the profession and certainly dehumanizes the work involved--this is where a union would come into play,,,would it make it better?---look at the school report cards on performance (that is politcally motivated too).......now we can all take our medicine with a spoonful of sugar .....

Health insurance for family coverage (part time for the summer) will be $600.00 month without prescription coverage which would add another $100.00 month.....it was either that or camp/sitter that I wouldn't trust not to mention they are my kids and no one elses and my responsibility.....Hillary can have her village and all the sex offenders that go with it, certainly she nor Schenectady county can weed them out......

Court strikes down health coverage law
http://www.dailygazette.com
  NEW YORK — A federal court has struck down a local law requiring certain big box retailers to provide health coverage for their

Quoted Text

workers.
   Judge Arthur Spatt, of U.S. District Court in Central Islip, ruled that Suffolk County’s so-called fair share law was pre-empted by federal employment law.
   Suffolk County Attorney Christine Malafi said Tuesday she was disappointed by the ruling.
   “We were hoping that our law would withstand the challenge,” she said.
   Sandy Kennedy, president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the plaintiff, said she was gratifi ed by the decision, which echoed a January 2007 federal appeals court ruling striking down a similar statute in Maryland.
   The Suffolk County law, enacted in 2005 and amended in 2006, required large retailers that sell groceries, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp., to make health care expenditures for most non-managerial employees equivalent to a public health cost rate determined by the county.

http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

Health insurance in state spotlight
BY BOB CONNER Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Bob Conner at 462-2499 or bconner@dailygazette.net.

   Universal health care coverage in New York is the goal of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, but he’s still deciding how to achieve it.
   State Health Department spokeswoman Claudia Hutton said the governor does not have in mind “one sweeping mandate,” whereby business or government would take on the entire burden of insuring the uninsured. Rather, she said, the administration envisions “a combination of actions” by businesses, governments, insurers and individuals, all of which would need to take action to accomplish the goal.
   The administration announced Tuesday a series of public hearings “on the development of proposals for achieving health system reform, increasing access to health insurance coverage and determining ways that universal coverage can be achieved in New York.” The fi rst of the daylong hearings will be Sept. 5 at the Glens Falls Civic Center, and more information is available at the Web site partnership4coverage. ny.gov.
   Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, a liberal Democrat from Manhattan who is chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, favors government playing the major role in providing universal coverage, and hopes Spitzer and the Legislature will come around to that position. In 1992, the Assembly passed Gottfried’s bill to provide New Yorkers with a single-payer, governmentfinanced system of health care coverage. Since then, however, while the bill has been passed each year by the panel chaired by Gottfried, it has never again made it to the floor of the Assembly, instead being bottled up in the Ways and Means Committee.
   Gottfried acknowledged that there might be “nervousness” within the Assembly’s Democratic conference about passing such a bill, which would involve higher taxes to pay for the program — he suggests an income tax surcharge would be part of the mix. But, he said, the bill or something like it could be revived successfully if Spitzer were to get behind it, and he believes the governor has an open mind.
   “I don’t think at this point the administration has formed an opinion on what kind of plan they want to put forward,” Gottfried said.
   He said that over the past 15 years, the coalition that backs his single-payer bill has been distracted by other issues, including battling cutbacks proposed by Spitzer’s Republican predecessor, George Pataki.
   While Pataki favored restraints on health-care spending, he also presided over significant expansions of government-funded health insurance coverage. This year’s budget under Spitzer continued those expansions, especially of Child Health Plus, which Hutton said should now be able to include every uninsured child — if the changes are approved by the federal government, which would have to meet part of the cost. The state will also be spending more than $10 million to raise awareness and get people signed up, Hutton said.
   Meanwhile, other states have moved toward universal coverage, including neighboring Massachusetts, which is essentially requiring everyone to be insured and providing public subsidies where needed.
   But Gottfried said the Massachusetts model, based on the private insurance system and coverage though employers, is “the wrong way to go.” He noted that government-run programs such as Medicare and Child Health Plus have been popular and successful, and said the same basic model could and should be used to provide universal coverage.
   Spitzer, while favoring universal coverage, wants to pay for it in part by controlling government health-care costs. The Democratic governor has put more emphasis on controlling those costs than most legislators from either party. He endorsed, for example, the findings of the Berger commission on healthcare facilities, a panel charged by Pataki with fostering efficiency and reducing costs. The result will be cutbacks of nursing home and hospital beds across the state, with Schenectady the most affected county in the Capital Region.
   Early this year, the fiscally conservative strain in Spitzer’s approach to health care was praised by the Empire Center for New York State Policy. But much of the potential savings did not make it through the budget process, and there is widespread consensus, all the way from liberals like Gottfried to the fiscally conservative Empire Center, that New York’s healthcare system is very inefficient and a drag on the economy.
   An Empire Center study earlier this year, for example, said “Medicaid spending on the elderly rose fi ve times faster in New York than in other states during the most recent five-year period for which data are available.” The center also said the Berger commission findings, even if fully implemented, addressed only a small part of New York’s wasteful spending on health care.  

  
  
  

Quoted Text

Spitzer, while favoring universal coverage, wants to pay for it in part by controlling government health-care costs.

This will cause a decline in health care services.
Taxes higher with less health care services.

Quoted Text

Spitzer, while favoring universal coverage, wants to pay for it in part by controlling government health-care costs. The Democratic governor has put more emphasis on controlling those costs than most legislators from either party.

So, what steps has Mr. Spitzer taken to this point to try to contain any of these costs?  

All talk, no action.  I don't want to pay for NY City Health care.  I can't afford much of what I have to pay for already for myself!

Mr. Bloombergs commute toll can pay for it....he's so concerned about the smog and health issues......

http://www.capitalnews9.com

Quoted Text

Universal health care public hearing to be held in Glens Falls
Updated: 9/5/2007 7:42 AM
By: Jessica Mokhiber
  
GLENS FALLS, N.Y. - Health care reform has become a hot topic in New York state, as health care costs continue to go up, just as the number of the people who are uninsured is also climbing. More than 2,000,000 New Yorkers don't have health insurance. Governor Spitzer is now asking health care workers, experts and the public for ways to make the system better and cheaper.

Licensed Psychologist Colleen Florio said, "I think this is an important issue because it affects all of us. It affects the quality of every person's life, the degree to which they have access to health care and how much they pay for it."

Florio has worked in local hospitals for years, and says she has concrete ideas for ways to cut costs.

"The single biggest thing that needs to happen is to reduce administrative costs. In order to have universal coverage, for every person to be covered, the only way we can afford to do that is to get the administrative costs out of the cost of delivering care."

Others agree. Matt Funiciello is a small business owner in Glens Falls. He can't afford to provide health insurance for all of his employees.

  Health care reform has become a hot topic in New York state, as health care costs continue to go up, just as the number of the people who are uninsured is also climbing.

Funiciello said, "As a small businessman, I have 40 workers who rely on me to get them health coverage. I feel I have failed them all because 7 or 8 of them are not covered, and I participate in the health insurance programs. Single-payer is what we have to work towards."

Funiciello also says he's seen health care in other countries first-hand.

"I grew up in Canada. I know what it is to have socialized medicine, and I'll tell you it's a lot better and a lot cheaper than what we have in the US," added Funiciello.

Health care experts and the public are invited to share their opinions and concerns. The forum starts at 9:30 in the morning at Heritage Hall in the Glens Falls Civic Center.

The Public Hearing Schedule
Date Time Location
September 5, 2007 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Glens Falls Civic Center
Heritage Hall
Glens Falls, NY

October 3, 2007 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Erie County Community College
Auditorium
Post Building
City Campus
121 Ellicott Street
Buffalo, NY

October 30, 2007 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Fordham University
Lowenstein Building
12th Floor Lounge
113 West 60th Street
New York, NY

November 13, 2007 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Onondaga Community College
Storer Auditorium
Syracuse, NY

December 5, 2007 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. SUNY College at Old Westbury
Recital Hall
Campus Center
Old Westbury, NY

Quoted Text

"I grew up in Canada. I know what it is to have socialized medicine, and I'll tell you it's a lot better and a lot cheaper than what we have in the US," added Funiciello.

Well Mr. Funiciello, why didn't you just stay in Canada than? And it is funny since all I have ever heard was how bad socialized medicine is. Especially in Canada.