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Federal officials tout new health law
Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by GRETCHEN PHILLIPS
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin visited the Charles County Department of Health in White Plains along with U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer to speak about the importance of the passage of a bill that will provide low-income children throughout the country medical and dental care.
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Kim Johnson knows the importance of affordable health care for children.
Johnson's 19-year-old daughter, Michelle, battled kyphosis — a painful curvature of the spine — since she was a young child and her brother, Travis, 12, has asthma. The two medical conditions are expensive to treat.
Fortunately, Johnson said her children have been enrolled in the Maryland Children's Health Insurance Program for several years and last summer her daughter was finally able to have an operation that fixed her spine.
That costly procedure — complicated by a urinary tract infection that sent her daughter back to the hospital for a week — would not have been possible if not for MCHIP, the Marbury resident said.
"The surgery helped her a lot," she said.
"I'm so happy that it's fixed," Michelle Johnson said before a press conference held by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md., 5th) at the Charles County Department of Health in White Plains began Monday. "If I hadn't had the surgery my spine would still be curved and I would be in a lot of pain. Now I can play sports. It's a great health insurance program."
Waldorf resident Eileen Thomas has four children ranging from 14 years to 9 months. Her husband, George, works a full-time job with the federal government and a part-time job with a local fast food restaurant, but it is still difficult for the couple to provide health and dental care for their children, she said.
"Oh, gosh, it's a phenomenal program," she said, adding that her 14-year-old has asthma that requires constant care. "Without this health insurance I would probably be begging people for money and medical bills would be going into collection because we wouldn't be able to pay them. MCHIP offers parents a wonderful opportunity to take care of their children's needs and keep their dignity."
President Barack Obama (D) signed the State Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act into law earlier this month. The law will provide health and dental care for 11 million low-income children across the nation through fiscal year 2013.
The bill preserves the coverage of 6.7 million children who are currently covered by the SCHIP program, including 110,000 in Maryland, according to Hoyer's office.
Under the revised law, Maryland will be able to enroll an additional 42,800 children, including a little more than 2,000 kids in Charles County, said Manjula Paul, director of the county health department's nursing and community health program. Nationwide, an additional 4 million children will be served.
"This program will definitely bring down the number of children who are still uninsured and underinsured in Charles County," she said Monday. "It will help us to narrow that number down and also help us provide more dental care."
The health department opened a dental clinic for low-income children last year. Currently, the clinic sees children four days a week and adults one day a week, Paul said, adding that there is a waiting list to be seen by the clinic's dentist that stretches through May.
Cardin and Hoyer praised Chinnadurai Devadason, Charles and Queen Anne's counties' health officer, for forging ahead with trying to address both the dental and medical needs of uninsured and underinsured children in the county. The newly authorized and expanded insurance program will assist the county in providing medical and dental care to more children, Devadason said. The bill also provides mental health services.
"We who work in health care every day see the difficulty that people are facing in dealing with health issues," he said.
"This program is an important first step in helping children at risk in this county."
Cardin and Hoyer spoke about the tragic death of a 12-year-old Prince George's County boy, Deamonte Driver, who died in 2007 because his mother could not afford to take him to a dentist for treatment of an abscessed tooth. The infection spread to the boy's brain.
"The passage of this bill is big news," Cardin said. "It's really important. There are so many families who are facing this type of dilemma. No mother should be faced with the circumstance of trying to determine if her child is sick enough to take to a doctor because she knows that something in her budget will have to give. In America, parents should never have to make those types of choices."
"For the lack of $80 for a dentist visit — where at worst he would have had a tooth pulled — $250,000 was spent and Deamonte Driver died," Hoyer said. "… I want to be sure that everybody has health care. Our public health system is stretched. We need more resources. We've got a lot of work to do."
Sen. Thomas "Mac" Middleton (D-Charles) said that the U.S. Senate and House need to continue to work to pass a universal health care bill.
"This has been a collaborative effort and we've made a lot of strides, but we've got a long way to go," he said.
The reauthorized and expanded State Children's Health Insurance Program will be funded in part with a 61-cent increase in the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes, according to Hoyer's office.
"More children in Charles County will be covered; the gap in health care will be reduced," Paul said. "This will be a wonderful dream come true for me."
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