By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-09-30 10:42:59 | Word Count: 450
There is far more at stake in Lansing than simply balancing the coming fiscal year’s budget. The lives of thousands of vulnerable children are literally at stake.
If the deep cuts being proposed by Legislative leaders are made to programs that prevent child abuse and neglect, that provide health care to impoverished children, and that help prepare vulnerable children before they reach kindergarten, our state is virtually assured that costs for foster care, juvenile justice, health and education will skyrocket.
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Programs proven to keep at-risk children out of expensive foster care and prepare them for school are not just being pared back, but in some cases are completely eliminated in this “cuts-only” approach to solving Michigan’s budget crisis.
This makes no sense morally – do politicians really want more kids to be hurt or fail school?
And it makes no sense economically – are they willing to “kick the can down the road” and burden taxpayers in coming years with higher costs stemming from more kids getting health care in emergency rooms, more kids repeating grades in school or dropping out, and increased crime?
Our legislators have shown their priorities by giving more and more tax breaks to special interest groups to the point where “tax expenditures” (revenues the state decides not to collect) now exceed state revenues. So, while Michigan’s economy is certainly struggling, many of the state’s budget problems are the result of choices made by its leaders.
Legislators seem prepared to allow 160,000 children go without health insurance because they will not allocate the state money needed to leverage three times as much in federal dollars for our MiChild health insurance program. Not only will these cuts prevent kids from getting a healthy start in life, but they mean fewer jobs in Michigan and more jobs in other states that can apply for those unspent federal funds.
In the last few days before the new fiscal year begins, our leaders in Lansing are making choices that have real, long-term consequences for vulnerable children and struggling families.
Let’s not bankrupt our future by failing our duty to help our most vulnerable citizens.
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