Find out the facts on Idaho health care

There are so many false messages swarming around the health care issue that attempting to counter them seems overwhelming. However, after reading a letter to the editor (Aug. 11, 2009) I have to try. The writer asserts that nearly everyone has health insurance — including all children and everyone on welfare — except those “who elect to be irresponsible and not take part in a modest co-pay.” This is so untrue I hardly know where to begin.

First of all, not all children have health insurance. In 2007, 43,339 Idaho children had no coverage. Forty states have broader coverage for children than Idaho.

Regarding welfare: does the writer not know that “welfare as we know it” ceased to exist in 1996? The program that replaced it, which is called TAFI (Temporary Aid to Families in Idaho) provides only $309 per month regardless of family size, to families that qualify and who participate in job search or readiness up to 40 hours a week. In Bonner County, usually no more than about 20 families are enrolled in this program at any one time. In all of Idaho, in 2006, only 1800 families were on TAFI. And this does not provide adults with Medicaid, only children who are U.S. citizens or legal residents.

Also, many adults with chronic medical conditions are not covered — as these conditions interfere with employment that offers insurance. The coverage available to those over 64 is often inadequate with elders struggling monthly to pay for prescriptions — or going without. Young mothers have coverage that ends 6 weeks after giving birth — right at the time they are most likely to struggle with postpartum depression and need help.

Many others have insurance that is inadequate, like the Wal-Mart employee who just died at 39 from a heart condition, that in all probability was aggravated by the 11 abscessed teeth that she could not afford to have taken care of.

In Bonner County alone there are approximately 10,000 individuals who are uninsured. The Bonner Partners in Care Clinic that serves the uninsured on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, is maxed out every night. They have about 1300 patients and are seeing new ones all the time. Many of these patients have a chronic illness that has gone untreated for years because they could not afford to go to a doctor. They are dealing with medical conditions that could have been prevented.

In Idaho, like in many third world countries, children die each year from treatable illnesses. This is inexcusable in one of the richest nations in the world — a nation that was built on an ideal that offers quality of life to all of its citizens — not just the wealthy.

It is a matter of priorities.

n Brenda Hammond is a mental health specialist at Early Head Start and a therapist at A New Hope. She serves on the board of NAMI and is a past board member of Bonner Partners in Care.