Covers physicals, immunizations, well-baby visits, dental care, eyeglasses and more. Administered by local social services departments. It also will allow parents to apply for the insurance through their employers or through a central processing unit in Richmond. Untreated ear infections can cause permanent hearing loss and speech impediments. Children suffering from illnesses such as strep throat or bronchitis that go untreated often develop more serious health problems.
Society bears the costs in many ways.
The pediatrician is president of a children's hospital in New York City's Bronx borough and president of the Children's Health Fund, a mobile clinic that provides free care to homeless and uninsured children across the country. I just saw a very bright kid in our emergency room who had missed 49 days of school because of asthma attacks and had to repeat the year. Created in August 1997, the program is considered by many government and health care analysts to be the most significant new federal health program since Medicaid and Medicare became law in 1965. Some states swiftly embraced the challenge. In the first three years of the program, which is known by a different name in each state, several states signed up more children for health insurance than the federal government determined they had eligible.