Blog For Georgia’s Children

The headline in the Austin American-Statesman is about Texas but it likely mirrors the same circumstances around the country.  Contrary to what many believe to be true, most uninsured children live in stable, working households.  Most people don’t realize that families receiving SCHIP benefits pay monthly premiums and co-pays.

Texas still has more uninsured children than any other state, and a new analysis shows that those children aren’t who people may think.

The majority of uninsured children in Texas — 89.5 percent — have at least one working parent, according to Families USA , a Washington-based nonprofit group that commissioned the analysis from the U.S. Census Bureau.

“There’s some mythology about uninsured families and uninsured children, and that mythology essentially tends to think about the uninsured being people who are looking for a handout, who are seeking welfare, when the precise opposite is true,” said Ron Pollack , executive director of Families USA, which advocates making health care available to all Americans. “These are people who play by the rules. They work hard; they pay taxes.”

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This could become an issue during the legislative session beginning in 2009, on top of SCHIP re-authorization on the federal level that is set to expire in March.  What’s being described here is a shell game played by Washington, but Georgia’s Department of Community Health believes a fee imposed on all HMOs is the only way to bridge the gap in funding for Medicaid and Peachcare.

Thousands of Georgians have lost their jobs in recent months, and thousands more have taken a financial beating because of the uncertain economy. With almost one in five Georgians already owing more than $1,000 in medical debts, now is not the time to cut medical benefits or deny state-subsidized health care to poor and working-class Georgians.

Yet, because of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s demand for across-the-board spending reductions, the state agency that administers Georgia’s Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids programs faces exactly that prospect. There are few ways to cut the more than $100 million that Perdue is demanding except by further tightening eligibility for those programs. Those cuts would come on top of reductions of more than 20 percent in both Medicaid and PeachCare enrollment over the past three years.

Fortunately, the Department of Community Health has put forth a politically tricky but wise alternative: levy a 3 percent surcharge on premiums paid to all health maintenance organizations that write insurance policies in Georgia. The money generated from the fee should be enough to adequately cover the nearly 1 million Georgians who need the two programs to stay healthy.

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Had to share this article in today’s WSJ concerning high school drop out rates and how they drag all of society down.  It also shows how a big problem in Georgia is just as bad in other parts of the country, and how differing statistics make it difficult to know the full extent of the problem.

OCTOBER 21, 2008

The High School Dropout’s Economic Ripple Effect
Mayors Go Door to Door, Personally Encouraging Students to Stay in the Game for Their Own Good — and for the Sake of the City
By GARY FIELDS

Washington — As the financial meltdown and economic slump hold the national spotlight, another potential crisis is on the horizon: a persistently high dropout rate that educators and mayors across the country say increases the threat to the country’s strength and prosperity.

According to one study, only half of the high school students in the nation’s 50 largest cities are graduating in four years, with a figure as low as 25% in Detroit. And while concern over dropouts isn’t new, the problem now has officials outside of public education worried enough to get directly involved.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is focusing its education efforts on dropouts. Mayors in Houston and other Texas cities go door to door to the homes of dropouts, encouraging them to return to school. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin meets on weekends with students and helps them with life planning. Other cities, like Milwaukee and Kansas City, Mo., have dropout prevention programs.

Some new studies show far fewer students completing high school with diplomas than long believed. “Whereas the conventional wisdom had long placed the graduation rate around 85%, a growing consensus has emerged that only about seven in 10 students are actually successfully finishing high school” in four years, said a study by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, a nonprofit group based in Bethesda, Md. It was released this year by America’s Promise Alliance, a nonpartisan advocacy group for youth. In the nation’s 50 largest cities, the graduation rate was 52%.

The longstanding American dropout problem may be especially thorny now, with a looming recession. Cutting the number of dropouts in half would generate $45 billion annually in new tax revenue, according to America’s Promise — assuming there are ultimately enough jobs to accommodate the graduates.

Marguerite Kondracke, president and CEO of America’s Promise, says there are about 77 million people who are hoping to retire — circumstances permitting — and are depending on workers to “fuel our economy and future growth, and the next generation of workers is not prepared for the 21st-century global economy.”

Ms. Kondracke calls the dropouts “our next class of nonperforming assets.” She says that each year dropouts represent $320 billion in lost lifetime earning potential. Jay Smink, director of the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University, says the difference in lifetime salary for a dropout and a high school graduate is about $300,000.

“In a global economy, the single most important issue facing our country is an educated work force,” says Houston Mayor Bill White. “Somebody who lacks a high school education will have lifetime earnings that are only about 60% of those of somebody with that education. That’s just the impact on personal income. There are the social costs as well.”

With other studies also showing increases in the number of students who aren’t graduating, public officials are concerned those numbers will mean rising costs for social programs and prisons, as well as lost tax revenue because of the reduced earnings potential of dropouts. Dropouts are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system, including about 75% of state prison inmates.

“The whole cauldron of social and economic challenges you face are increased, and those problems are laid at the doorstep of city hall, city government, community organizations and churches,” says Marc Morial, former mayor of New Orleans and currently president of the National Urban League.

Dropouts rates are a confusing mishmash of data. Studies differ on what graduation means. One study done by the U.S. Department of Education found that dropout rates had declined, mostly steadily, from 14.6% in 1972 to 9.3% in 2006. Another department study found that only about 74% of the nation’s students graduated on time. Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said earlier this year she would seek to ensure that all states begin using the same formula to calculate how many students graduate from high school on time and how many drop out.

Kerri Briggs, an assistant secretary for the department, says some studies count General Educational Development, or GED, certificates, but a GED “is not as helpful in the long run as a regular high school diploma.” Ms. Briggs adds that the four-year graduation rate is 80% for whites but only 59% for blacks. “Those are big gaps and they have meaning for kids in their ability to participate in the work force,” she says.

Detroit has the lowest four-year graduation rate in the study, at 25%, according to America’s Promise. Officials there are revamping the high schools. So far, the school system has started a high school redesign at five sites. Among the steps being taken are better counseling services and efforts to design curricula at schools in particular locations geared to industries in the same area.

“The number of students are falling away at such a large percentage that you can’t point to any one factor or any one solution,” says Steve Wasko, spokesman for the school system.

Houston has embarked on a wide-ranging plan, including a program called Reach Out to Dropouts, where volunteers, including Mayor White and school superintendent Abelardo Saavedra, visit the homes of students who haven’t returned to school.

Reach Out has recaptured more than 5,500 dropouts in the city since it started in 2004. This year, it spread to 17 school districts in the state. Last month, local officials and volunteers in those school districts convinced 541 students to sign up for school that day.

The idea came from a kitchen conversation between the mayor and his wife, a local education activist. Mr. White was troubled by the fact that while the private sector could track inventory world-wide, school systems could not track students.

“It seemed to me we weren’t valuing these kids,” he says. Within weeks, they were walking, tracking the students who had dropped out of eight schools.

On the walks, city and school officials and volunteers, often from the business community, talk about why students quit and what they need to return. In some cases, it is day care.

Airiell Watkins, 17 years old, came back this year after the dogged visits of dropout specialist Craig Zeno and several teachers from her old school.

“It was too complicated balancing school and taking care of myself at the same time,” Ms. Watkins says. The girl, now a junior, lived alone most of the time. She quit and worked a variety of jobs, including braiding hair.

Mr. Zeno went to her apartment several times, leaving cards and messages. Finally, he went back with several of her teachers, who promised that she would get help in classes where she was having trouble. Mr. Zeno gave her money out of his own pocket.

Ms. Watkins says the personal visits convinced her to give school another try. “They were saying I was so smart and they didn’t know why I wasn’t in school, that I was too smart to just drop out,” she says. “It got to me, kind of.”

Since returning, she has missed only two days, and she participates regularly in class. She says she can’t make any promises, but “I’m trying to finish. If I don’t, they will come after me again, and I don’t want that to happen.”

Write to Gary Fields at gary.fields@wsj.com

Life options and personal convictions of a highly educated couple in New York City led them to keep their child out of pre-school and kindergarten in favor of an unconventional home school approach.

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The study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America reported on in today’s AJC sheds some light on the link between parental income and education with the health of children.  Not surprisingly, higher income and education generally yield better child health.  Also not a surprise is that Georgia is ranked near the bottom in the nation when it comes to disparities in infant mortality.  What does come as a surprise – at least at first glance – is the statistic that more than 40 percent of Georgia children live in poor or near-poor households, while 26 percent live in high-income families.

I’m still looking for a link to the report to find out how poor and high-income are defined.  It’s generally accepted that about 20 percent of Georgia kids live in poverty.  But 26 percent of kids live in high-come households?

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Craig Schneider’s article in the 10/6/08 AJC is an early warning of what might happen during the 2009 Legislative Session as the insurance lobby prepares for battle against expansion of a state imposed tax on Care Management Organizations (CMOs) – the companies administering Georgia’s Medicaid and PeachCare programs – to all HMOs in the state.  It’s complicated but boils down to this:

• States currently impose a 5.5% tax on premiums charged by CMOs, who in turn are reimbursed for the tax by the Fed.
• The Fed now states that it will not supply reimbursement unless states tax HMOs in addition to CMOs.  The HMOs cannot apply for reimbursement as do the CMOs.
• To spread the financial blow to insurers, Georgia proposes a tax of 3%  to HMOs and CMOs.

Bottm line: If the insurance industry interferes with Georgia’s plan, taxes are not collected and federal funding is stopped.  Medicaid and PeachCare benefits will have to be cut.

Does all this make sense?  Is it fair?

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