The House is set to pass a bill today to expand a health insurance program for children. The bill will expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, an initiative created during Clinton’s administration. It helps children at or below the poverty line who do not qualify for Medicaid.
The bill will cost $33 billion over 4.5 years and will add 4.1 million children to the enrollment.
It will add 61-cents to each pack of cigarettes in order to pay for the health plan.

Although mental health care for children, publicly funded mental health care, has improved over the last 25 years it still lacks what it really needs.
In fact, the top officials state that one out of five states say that no children with serious mental health issues recieve good care.
The USA Today reports that a “report” surveyed state and county mental health officials (and others) involved with children’s care.
The result was that only seven states had consistent funding for children of all ages. Some federal and state policies blocked Medicaid reimbursement (which is allowed for preventative care).

Health Care Reform will be a difficult “mission” for President Obama, as health care has traditionally been a tough fight. President Obama has promised, repeatedly, to make health care affordable for everyone. In fact, he has often times been called a socialist for his health care ideals. But when the US has approximately 46 million people who are uninsured someone has to get to work.
His health care reform also includes:
1. requiring large companies to provide care plans for their employees or contribute to funds for the uninsured
2. requiring that ALL children are insured (expanding State Children’s Health Insurance Program …read more

Our children’s health being a parent’s primary concern, I thought it would be interesting to see how Barak Obama and John McCain’s policy for health care differ.
In summary, Barak Obama wants a new national health plan for all US citizens and have government establish a national practice standard for health providers. McCain wants to make health insurance more affordable by fostering competition among insurance companies, and giving families’ freedom of choice in choosing health care insurance across state lines.
Disclaimer – I read this from the Health-insurance-carriers.com blog and not my own personal opinion or analysis.
Barak Obama:

Guaranteed …read more

Published by the Harvard Health Newsletter, the top health news of 2007 are headed by drug failures and advancements in genetics.
Here is a summary of the news release.
1. Drug safety failures. This year, rosiglitazone (Avandia), a diabetes drug, became the latest medication found to have serious side effects that weren’t apparent when it was approved by the FDA.
2. Genome-wide association studies. Researchers find unique “flags” associated with disease and then conduct an intensive search for genetic miscues just in that neighborhood of the genome. This year, genome-wide association studies have identified genes associated with type 2 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and …read more

Not to sound political (this isn’t the blog for that) but lately, I’ve been hearing more and more about SCHIP – the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
‘What is it? Who currently benefits? What changes are going to happen? Why the buzz in DC?’ are just some of the questions that run through my mind as I listen to a breaking news in my local TV. So, I did a little browsing and compiled what I learned.
What is the Children’s Health Insurance Program?

The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is designed for families who earn too much money to qualify …read more