HealthCareForAmericaNow

I'd just like to reiterate something DemFromCT pointed out over the weekend:

Remember, this is just the beginning. Covering kids through Medicaid and SCHIP will temporarily help kids (but not adults), and mask what's really happening as people lose insurance and can't get it back (that takes at least two years after a recession). When states start to hurt, eligibility will be cut back and/or new enrollment will be limited at the state level.

Even were it not for a recession, reforms in health care are badly needed. From TIME:

By too many measures, America is a lot less healthy than a developed nation has any business being.

This Trust For America's Health report from October, 2008 focuses on better ways to spend health dollars:

Even though the United States spends more than $2 trillion annually on health care, tens of millions of Americans suffer from preventable diseases and major vulnerabilities exist in the nation's preparedness to respond to health emergencies.

If there's any doubt as to why health reform is at the top of the new Obama Administration's agenda, these numbers should put that to rest. A health disaster is staring us in the face, and "status quo" is far more tenuous than it appears. Covering the kids, important as it is, is only a piece of the puzzle.

Parents are more likely to take their children to the doctor regularly if they themselves have health insurance [pdf], not just their kids. And when those kids grow out of the Children's Health Insurance Program, they're still young, and still need coverage.

Children's Defense Fund Action Council knows better than anybody that SCHIP, while an important program, isn't children's health care, and they've joined our steering committee to advocate for quality, affordable health care for all Americans in 2009 - children included.