Ensuring a robust and comprehensive Essential Health Benefits (EHB) package is critically important for children, especially those who are lower-income and/or have special health care needs.  HHS must aggressively define the EHB package for children and cannot rely on the sufficiency of the existing benchmark options outlined in the bulletin. This is especially relevant to the pediatric services outlined in the bulletin, such as oral and vision care.

Voices recommended the following regulatory approaches:

• HHS should take a prescriptive, rather than flexible, approach in setting the standard for children’s health care.
• Valuable state mandates securing access to critical services for children should be included in the EHB definition.
• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services must clarify its regulations on the Children’s Health Insurance Program dental benefit as required by its renewal legislation in 2009.
• It is important to provide detailed regulatory guidance to states on the design of the pediatric dental benefit.
• Ensure that the Exchange regulations provide consumers equitable affordability of oral health benefits, regardless of issuer.
• HHS should allow and encourage states to provide cost‐effective risk‐based pediatric dental benefits.
• Medicaid’s pediatric standard of coverage, EPSDT, should serve as the model for the scope and breadth of EHBs for children, including vision/oral care.  This includes EPSDT’s broader medical necessity definition, which is critical to ensuring healthy childhood development.
• The outlined approach regarding potential benchmarks for pediatric oral and vision care should be strengthened, so that states have the option of using the children’s Medicaid benefit as a benchmark.

We look forward to working with HHS to implement these recommendations, in order to ensure all children receive quality health care coverage and access as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

The prospects for new education legislation during the election year are dim. But the policy discussions have been simmering around the country lately, including Voices’ own series of town hall meetings. Voices member Voices for Georgia’s Children has just told us of two meetings it has scheduled with Georgia’s members of Congress, which will include presentations with school workers, early education experts and more. They’re excited about the possibilities and so is Voices! Befriend Voices for Georgia’s Children on Facebook for updates on their work.

Kids between the ages of six months and three years who are at high risk of dental cavities will be able to have primary care providers administer fluoride varnish treatments to protect their teeth from decay. Primary care providers who have been certified through the West Virginia University School of Dentistry will be eligible for reimbursement from the state Bureau of Medical Services. On behalf of kids in West Virginia, great job West Virginia KIDS COUNT!

Barriers to the vote could disenfranchise as many as five million eligible voters in the 2012 election, according to a Brennan Center for Justice estimate cited in the report. The NAACP commendably shows how racially disproportionate the impact would be, using the example of voter ID laws: “…an astonishing 25% of African Americans (over 6.2 million African-American voters) and 16% of Latinos (over 2.96 million Latino voters) do not possess valid photo ID. By comparison, only 8% of whites are without a current government-issued photo ID.” In other words, new voting laws are choosing restrictions that correlate with race groups in the hopes of discouraging people of color from voting, the report argues.

Read a summary on the NAACP’s website, and let us know what you think on our Facebook page.

Twenty-three U.S. states are sharing $296.5 million for encouraging low-income families to enroll their children in public health programs.  Bonuses announced last week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reward states that streamline eligibility for Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.  The effort is aimed at children younger than 19 from households with annual incomes of as much as $45,000 for a family of four, though some states have more generous criteria.

States which received bonuses include Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin, and Virginia.

When you consider the 2.5 million young adults also joining the insurance rolls in recent years, it’s clear that America has made great gains in coverage for kids. You can read this issue brief from the Department of Health and Human Services to learn how more children are gaining health coverage through these programs.

The nonpartisan CBO is the authority on how much legislation costs, and it would seem to show that health reform is paid for. Krugman goes so far as to show a summary of CBO estimates demonstrating health reform’s net effect on the deficit. The facts often get lost in the hysterics and grandstanding that big legislation attracts, but a lot of people don’t know all the good that health reform has already done for American kids.

There are far too many children in need of rehabilitation in America, with about 1.9 million juveniles arrested yearly. Preventing crime and helping these youth is not only the right thing to do, but stands to save us a lot of money: It costs around $88,000 a year to incarcerate a juvenile.

Pre-K costs only around $4,000 a year, a bargain for the nurturing, socialization and education a child receives. And pre-K has been shown to reduce crime. An often-cited study of Chicago at-risk youth showed that those who got high-quality pre-K were 39 percent less likely to have been incarcerated by age 28. Learn more in our infographic!

Although the administration has sought reform of No Child Left Behind, these waivers could be an indication that the law won’t get attention anytime soon. Educators worry that the law as it stands forces them to spend too much time teaching to standardized tests. Only a third of American 4th and 8th graders read at a “proficient” level, according to national tests. Learn more in our report on student testing.

Why is promoting breastfeeding so important? Only about 13 percent of American babies are exclusively breast-fed for six months, as the World Health Organization recommends. Promoting breastfeeding is even more important in the rest of the world, as a recent New York Times article “The Breast Milk Cure” explains. Take some time and learn about the issue!

“Studies show pretty consistently that every dollar spent on prenatal care yields between $1.70 and $3.38 in savings,” our own Senior Vice President of Programs Joe Theissen tells the Salt Lake Tribune. You can tell your members of Congress not to be short-sighted about child services by signing our petition to protect kids!