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Monday, March 12, 2007
Should we save Peachcare?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Congress is playing games with Georgia’s PeachCare for Kids program and children’s health insurance programs that are running out of money in about a dozen other states. Last week Democrats in Congress tied emergency funding for the programs to a military spending bill that calls for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq by the end of the year. And the Republicans in the state Legislature seem intent on slashing enrollment in the highly-successful program rather than spending more state money — even on a temporary basis — to keep it going under the current eligibility and benefit rules.
PeachCare covers 278,000 Georgia children in working-class families where parents make too much money to be on Medicaid but not enough to be able to afford private insurance coverage. The families pay low monthly premiums for coverage of children 18 and under.
Read today’s editorial on the subject and tell us where to go from here. Should the state increase the premiums for the highest-earning families? Switch more of the lowest-income families to Medicaid? Institute co-payments and deductibles for the first time? Or should we try a totally different approach?
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