Our Health Policy Matters

The late comedian Jack Benny made himself the butt of a running gag about how cheap he was.   A crook would come up to him and demand “your money or your life!”   After a long pause, Benny would deadpan to the increasingly impatient crook, “I’m thinking about it.” It’s funny to think about someone who would hold onto his own money so tightly that he would put his own life at risk.   It’s not funny to think about people who would do the same and put their children’s lives at risk. At the beginning of the 21 st century, we could feel good about the progress we were making to improve the health of our children.   While child poverty rates were doggedly high, other key indicators, including infant mortality rates, low birthweight rates, immunization rates, and violence rates, were all improving.   We had reason to believe that even the “compassionate, conservative” approach to policymaking would continue to get results. It didn’t happen.   Some data from th...

The late comedian Jack Benny made himself the butt of a running gag about how cheap he was.   A crook would come up to him and demand “your money or your life!”   After a long pause, Benny would deadpan to the increasingly impatient crook, “I’m thinking about it.” It’s funny to think about someone who would hold onto his own money so tightly that he would put his own life at risk.   It’s not funny to think about people who would do the same and put their children’s lives at risk. At the beginning of the 21 st century, we could feel good about the progress we were making to improve the health of our children.   While child poverty rates were doggedly high, other key indicators, including infant mortality rates, low birthweight rates, immunization rates, and violence rates, were all improving.   We had reason to believe that even the “compassionate, conservative” approach to policymaking would continue to get results. It didn’t happen.   Some data from th...