Our Health Policy Matters

I am writing this column just a few hours after the birth of my second grandchild, Haley Marie.  Haley Marie looks like her father.  She is long and thin, and she is going to be very pretty when she is older. Our first grandchild, Noah, was born four months ago.  He’s in the 5 th percentile in weight, and my wife and I joked that it would be hard for Haley to beat that when she came along. She did.  She weighed in at two pounds and eleven ounces, which means that, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count project, she is one of the 1.5% of all U.S.  babies who are born each year at “very low birth weight,” or less than 1500 grams (3 pounds, 4 ounces).  So Haley Marie will spend her first days in a hospital neonatal intensive care unit.  Haley is fortunate.  She was beyond thirty-two weeks of gestation.  Her Apgar scores were stellar.  She is strong and has good lungs.  I can also offer direct testim...

I am writing this column just a few hours after the birth of my second grandchild, Haley Marie.  Haley Marie looks like her father.  She is long and thin, and she is going to be very pretty when she is older. Our first grandchild, Noah, was born four months ago.  He’s in the 5 th percentile in weight, and my wife and I joked that it would be hard for Haley to beat that when she came along. She did.  She weighed in at two pounds and eleven ounces, which means that, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count project, she is one of the 1.5% of all U.S.  babies who are born each year at “very low birth weight,” or less than 1500 grams (3 pounds, 4 ounces).  So Haley Marie will spend her first days in a hospital neonatal intensive care unit.  Haley is fortunate.  She was beyond thirty-two weeks of gestation.  Her Apgar scores were stellar.  She is strong and has good lungs.  I can also offer direct testim...

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...