[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 81 (Tuesday, May 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6762-S6763]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


             CHILDREN ARE THE VICTIMS OF NATIONAL POLICIES

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, Abigail Trafford of the Washington 
Post wrote a commentary recently that I ask be printed in the Record at 
the end of my remarks. She writes that we as a Nation care immensely 
when tragedies involving individual children come to our attention, but 
we fail to care enough for children who are hurt by our national 
policies.
  A recent example of this is our national sense of outrage and 
compassion regarding the children killed in the 
[[Page S6763]] Oklahoma City bombing. We were all rightfully outraged 
that innocent children were killed in this senseless act of violence. 
But we cannot and should not accept the fact that millions of innocent 
children do not have adequate health care, which results in the 
premature death and disability of many, many children. Perhaps if we 
were able to put a face on every single child who suffers from lack of 
access to health care, we would have a national policy that ensures all 
children would have their health care needs met.
  There are important reasons why we need to act soon. A report 
released a few months ago by the Employee Benefit Research Institute 
shows that between 1992 and 1993, the number of uninsured people 
increased 17.8 percent to 40.9 million. The most alarming finding, 
however, is that children account for the largest proportion of the 
increase in the number of the uninsured. In 1993, 11.1 million children 
did not have health care coverage.
  In addition, if the enormous cuts in the Medicaid Program that have 
been proposed by some of my colleagues are enacted, there will be a 
tremendous increase in the number of uninsured children. That is 
because Medicaid currently provides health care coverage to 
approximately 13.5 million children whose families could not otherwise 
afford to take their children to a doctor.
  To address this problem, I will introduce legislation next month to 
ensure that all children, beginning with children under 7, and pregnant 
women have affordable coverage for comprehensive, high-quality health 
care. My proposed maximizes State flexibility while ensuring full 
accountability for results, and relies on the private sector to deliver 
the highest quality care at the lowest price.
  If you agree that we need to protect our children, I welcome your 
interest and urge you to help me develop a proposal that all of us can 
support. Dr. Birt Harvey of the Stanford University Medical School 
states in Ms. Trafford's article, ``We care about children as 
individuals. We don't care about them as a nation.'' I hope we can work 
together to change that.
  The article follows:
                     [Washington Post, May 9, 1995]

            We Love the Child, But What About the Children?

                         (By Abigail Trafford)

       It was the baby in the firefighter's arms--little Baylee 
     Almon covered with dust and blood--who became the symbol of 
     the nation's agony in the Oklahoma City bombing. Long after 
     rubble from the bombing is cleared, we remember Baylee and 
     the others in the doomed day-care center.
       Suffer the children.
       We are a nation that loves children. Obsesses about 
     children. The child in pain, the child in triumph--we hang on 
     every detail. We open our hearts--and our pocketbooks--to 
     help a high-profile child in need. Children are our 
     conscience.
       Or are they?
       You would certainly think so from the way we respond to 
     children in the news. We have a track record for turning the 
     child in the public spotlight into a metaphor of what kind of 
     people we are and who we care about most.
       We held our breath when Jessica, the 18-month-old toddler 
     of Midland, Tex., was buried for 2\1/2\ days in an abandoned 
     well in 1987. And cheered when she was hauled out by a crane 
     into the glare of television lights and cameras.
       We agonized over David, the boy in the bubble. Born with a 
     rare immune disease, he died in 1984 after spending most of 
     his 12 years of life inside a sterile plastic cage that kept 
     him away from common germs--and away from human touch.
       And last year, we grieved for Michael, 3, and Alexander, 14 
     months, the two boys of Susan Smith, the young South Carolina 
     mother who confessed to sending her sons to a water grave.
       Suffer the children.
       Every child who makes the news taps into the public's huge 
     reservoir of concern for children in trouble, for children 
     who are victims. But this outpouring of anguish and 
     generosity usually stops with the high-profile case.
       The fact is that as a nation we neglect our children, 
     particularly the ones who are sick and poor. That was the 
     conclusion of a 1991 bipartisan national commission on 
     children. ``. . . at every age, among all races and income 
     groups, and in communities nationwide, many children are in 
     jeopardy,'' stated the commission in its executive summary. 
     ``If we measure success not just by how well most children 
     do, but by how poorly some fare, America falls far short.''
       Advocates for children like to point out that the United 
     States is the only industrialized country that doesn't have a 
     national policy to support children. While a patchwork of 
     government and private programs help certain groups of 
     children, there is no comprehensive commitment to the young 
     the way there is to the elderly. As Sara Rosenbaum, co-
     director of the George
      Washington University Center for Health Policy Research, 
     explains: ``Children are the most vulnerable segment of 
     society. They don't have the clout that other population 
     groups have. If children are falling apart, it has 
     tremendous consequences for the nation.''
       To be sure, the prime responsibility for the health and 
     safety of children rests with the family. But some families 
     cannot provide the basic supports. The needs, according to 
     the bipartisan report, involve many aspects of children's 
     lives including housing, education and protection from abuse.
       One of the biggest needs is health insurance. An increasing 
     number of children do not have health coverage from private 
     or public sources. There is no national health plan for 
     children that automatically covers them as the Medicare 
     program does for the elderly.
       ``We care about children as individuals. We don't care 
     about them as a nation,'' says Birt Harvey, professor 
     emeritus at the Stanford University Medical School and past 
     president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
       ``It's a crisis of conscience and it's a crisis of 
     consciousness,'' adds Susan S. Aronson, clinical professor of 
     pediatrics at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and 
     Hahnemann University. ``We've lost our perspective as a 
     society that we are responsible for children.''
       Statistics tell the dismal story. Since 1991, the number of 
     uninsured children has risen from 9.5 million to 11.1 million 
     in 1993, according to an analysis by the Employee Benefit 
     Research Institute. The percentage of uninsured children has 
     also increased and of the additional 1.1 million Americans 
     who have recently lost health coverage, more than 920,000 are 
     children. This increase occurred despite expanded coverage of 
     children under Medicaid.
       What's more, private coverage of children has declined. The 
     largest jump in uninsured children took place in families 
     where the father was working for a small firm with fewer than 
     10 employees, researchers found.
       Three basic options to cover all children and pregnant 
     women have been circulating in the backwaters of the nation's 
     capital for some years: provide subsidies for the uninsured 
     to purchase health coverage, create a Medicare type program 
     for children, and open up Medicaid to more families. While 
     there is a general consensus that all children ought to have 
     access to basic medical services, there is not a lot of 
     agreement on how to get there. And right now there's very 
     little apparent interest in Congress or the Clinton 
     administration to do much of anything. As Harvey observes: 
     ``It doesn't seem like a high priority--it doesn't seem like 
     a priority at all.''
       Suffer the children.
       

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