(Chris Tomlinson, Houston Chronicle)
More than a million Texas children remain without health insurance, and those kids are not getting the care they need.
The startling condition of the state’s children came into vivid focus last week with the release of the annual Kids Count survey. The analysis of official state and federal data by the non-partisan Center for Public Policy Priorities found that 1.2 million Texas children have neither private nor public health insurance.
Almost 40 percent of Texas mothers received little or no prenatal care and one in seven babies were born premature, statistics show. The difference between being insured and uninsured is stark: 90 percent of insured kids are healthy, while only 58 percent of kids without insurance are considered healthy.
It comes as no surprise that the percentage of children covered by health care is directly related to the employment rate and the parent’s economic status. With 25 percent of Texas children living in poverty, a rate that consistently runs 5 percent above the national average, Texas ranks 41st in the nation in number of uninsured kids, even though the unemployment rate is lower than the national average.
When uninsured kids get sick, their parents have no place to take them other than a public hospital’s emergency room, which by law cannot turn them away. And if those parents cannot pay the extremely expensive bill? The taxpayer picks up the tab.
(Read more at Houston Chronicle)
OTHER HEADLINES:
- Texas Pulls a ‘Switcheroo’ to Continue Women’s Health Program Funding (Houston Chronicle)
- Texas Docs Get More Active On The Environment (KUHF Public Radio)
- Initiative Against Child Predators Starts On High Note (KUHF Public Radio)
- More Changes May Be Ahead for TEXAS Education Grants (Texas Tribune)
- Houston Woman Raising Funds for Good Cause (KTRK 13 News)
- Teen Unemployment Could Put Disadvantage On Future Job (KUHF Public Radio)
- Federal Funds to Train the Jobless Are Drying Up (New York Times)
OPINIONS ON THE NEWS:
- The ‘Burbs, They Are a Changin’ (Editorial, Houston Chronicle)
“…We think it’s obvious that growth means change. The question isn’t whether our area will change, but how it should change. And we think the Houston area desperately needs more dense urban centers…” - The Taint of ‘Social Darwinism’ (Philip Kitcher, New York Times)
“..The strenuous struggle social Darwinism envisages might select for something, but the most likely traits are a tendency to take whatever steps are necessary to achieve a foreseeable end, a sharp focus on narrowly individual goals and a corresponding disregard for others…”