Health Insurance Proposals from Bush, Children’s Defense Fund

President Bush is offering a new proposal for health insurance reform, with a perk for the relatively wealthy and a punishment for the working middle-class.
Bush suggests that those who pay for their insurance out-of-pocket receive $15,000 tax-deduction. At the same time, those who receive health insurance through an employer would have to pay taxes on coverage over $15,000. Who is rewarded by this proposal? Those who can afford to pay out-of-pocket for health insurance. Who is punished? Those who receive coverage through their employer. (And who is totally neglected? People who are too poor to pay for insurance and do not receive insurance from employers; i.e. the people most in need!)

Bush’s proposal is in sharp contrast to the approach the Children’s Defense Fund is promoting. CDF is focused on those approximately 9 million children in this country who do not have health insurance. The CDF proposal is to create a federal health insurance program that would be available to all children in the U.S. and that would be free to those families that cannot afford to pay. The program would be easy for families to use: parents would have multiple opportunities to sign their children up, and children receiving certain federal benefits would automatically be enrolled.

So far it does not seem that there is legislation in Congress that matches the CDF plan, but there is pressure building for developing a policy that would cover uninsured children. 

Quilts Made For Children, By Children

UU’s in the Media has been a great source recently for news about Unitarian Universalists helping children. It pointed me this week to this sweet story in the Journal & Courier of Lafayette, Indiana, about a quilting project at the local Unitarian Universalist Church:

Dozens of men, women and children from the Unitarian Universalist Church stitched together 28 quilts to give to infants and children who had been taken recently from homes where crystal methamphetamine had been produced in Tippecanoe County.

"The chemicals and the drug can be toxic to children’s skin," said Patty Wood, the most experienced quilter at the church and leader of the Unitarian Universalist’s Fiberarts group. "Their blankets, clothes and toys usually have to be taken away because they’re tainted with the chemicals.

This project not only provides special gifts to children going through traumatic events, but also draws on the talents of children in the congregation. Children as young as nine have learned to sew and create quilts under Wood’s guidance.

Chances for Peace in the Midst of Boston Violence

This weekend brought news of thirteen-year-old Luis Gerena being murdered near his home in Boston. This is the third middle-school boy who has been murdered in Boston within the last several weeks. Like Emmanuel Benjamin Saintil, a fourteen-year-old who was shot on December 22nd, Luis Gerena attended the school where I teach part-time. The violence is emotionally traumatizing for children, family members, teachers, church members, and many other people who belong to the communities of which these boys have been a part.

I believe this kind of violence is preventable--that these boys might not have been killed if there were more support for anti-violence programs in Boston. I read in today’s Washington Post about Peaceoholics , a D.C.-based program that reaches out to young people who are considering violence, and gives them encouragement to make a better choice. This kind of program offers the possibility of saving lives. Knowing that successful models for youth violent prevention do exist gives me some hope when the barrage of loss is overwhelming.