Children's Medicaid Entitlement: What Have We Got to Lose?
1 American Academy of Pediatrics, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007
Associate Executive Director, American Academy of Pediatrics, 141 Northwest Point Blvd, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007
Medicaid's efficacy as a safety net for children has been lost in the heated health policy debates of the last 2 years. The second year of the last Congress was dominated by competing proposals that would have cast aside Medicaid and assured universal coverage through comprehensive private health insurance plans. The first year of the current Congress has been spent debating legislation designed to reduce the federal government's role in the provision of health care services through constrained funding, regulatory rollback, and broadened latitude for state programs dependent on federal dollars, (eg, Medicaid).
Over the past 2 years, taking the position that the Medicaid program should be exempt from proposed changes (at least with respect to children) has not been in vogue.
Submitted on August 14, 1995Accepted on August 14, 1995




