Not One Dime Until the Children are Covered

According to the AJC, Speaker Richardson's plan to solve the PeachCare crisis is to eliminate 30,000 or more children from the PeachCare rolls by tightening the household income ceiling to 200% of poverty. I have a better idea. How about before we start kicking kids off PeachCare, we require all state legislators and constitutional officers to pay the full cost of their health insurance? I jest. Only a little. The reality is that we have to decide, on a local, state and national level what our funding priorities are. Do we want to fund "Go Fish" or children's healthcare? Do we want to fund cyber-security or children's healthcare? What are our priorities? If I told you that my household budget would not allow me to pay for medical care for my children, yet I chose to spend money to take them fishing or buy a computer, what would you think? This is the same issue on a different scale.

We have to remember that eliminating coverage will not eliminate need and will not keep children from getting sick. What we will be doing is eliminating critical preventative medicine that, if provided, could save taxpayers money in the long run. Eliminating kids from the PeachCare rolls is bad policy, and as the budget is debated, I urge legislators, Democrats and Republicans to have the courage to stand up and say, "Not one dime until the children are covered."

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