Kansas Legislature,Congress should help make health insurance available to more children

A health policy group says Kansas needs to work harder to sign up children for the federally funded Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Helping more kids who qualify under current income guidelines is a laudable goal. An estimated 40,000 Kansas children could get health coverage if they could be identified and their parents informed about the program.
Unfortunately, the Kansas Health Policy Authority’s recommendations to lawmakers and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius still would leave thousands of children without coverage.
This week the U.S. House made it even more difficult to add children to the program. It failed to override President Bush’s veto of legislation that would have extended and expanded the insurance program.
The president is talking about a smaller expansion, which is shortsighted.
A growing number of families rely on hospital emergency rooms because they cannot afford to see doctors. Subsidizing unnecessary emergency-room treatment drives up health-care costs for everyone.
More than 300,000 Kansans lack basic health insurance. Many are children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
In Kansas, children in families that earn up to 200 percent of the poverty line can qualify. For a family of four, the income limit is about $41,300 a year.
Yet many families who make more than that have trouble purchasing insurance because it isn’t offered through their jobs or it is too costly.
School nurses, health departments, hospitals that see children on an emergency basis, and other providers are important allies in any state push to get more children signed up.
The Kansas Legislature should be responsive to ideas that would make sure every child can see a doctor for both treatment and preventive care. And Congress should do its part by allowing more children to get medical help.