While the Supreme Court deals with the constitutionality of the individual mandate - which is an abstract consideration of course - the real problem of the uninsured persists, especially in Texas.
From the HC:
More than 1 million Texas children remain without health insurance, and those kids are not getting the care they need.
The startling condition of the state's children came into vivid focus last week with the release of the annual Kids Count survey. The analysis of official state and federal data by the non-partisan Center for Public Policy Priorities found that 1.2 million Texas children have neither private nor public health insurance.
Almost 40 percent of Texas mothers received little or no prenatal care and one in seven babies were born premature, statistics show. The difference between being insured and uninsured is stark: 90 percent of insured kids are healthy, while only 58 percent of kids without insurance are considered healthy.
Perhaps this fits into our ongoing question about whether government is broken. Real problems persist while these constitutional questions are debated. What does this mean about our willingness to confront a problem like this, or are there sufficient numbers who do not think this presents a problem that government needs to address?
