Columnist Jeff German: We’re not taking care of the kids

Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2003 | 11:03 a.m.

If you believe that children are our future, you'll be concerned about the future of Nevada after you read the failing report card the state got from the Children's Advocacy Alliance.

Fast-growing Nevada rarely fares well, compared to the rest of the nation, when it comes to meeting the health, educational and social needs of its youth.

We can build megaresorts and giant convention centers on the Strip, but we can't provide enough health insurance for children and expectant mothers in need or stem the flow of high teen suicide and dropout rates. Or find ways to steer more of our youth from drugs and alcohol.

Nevada received an overall D-minus grade in its treatment of children, ranking it at the bottom of the list with such states as Louisiana and Mississippi, where poverty is much more pervasive.

The Henderson-based children's alliance said it was so pessimistic about seeing any immediate improvement in Nevada that it wasn't even going to grade the state next year.

"We are a wealthy state that is not taking care of its children," says Donna Coleman, president of the alliance.

Last week's poor performance rating from Coleman's organization is particularly hard to swallow because it comes in the middle of a state budget crisis that is putting pressure on the governor to cut child welfare programs, not increase them, to make up for a $704 million shortfall.

Mike Willden, director of the state's Department of Human Resources, is hoping to scrounge up a few more bucks for Nevada Check Up, a program that uses state and matching federal funds to provide health care to 25,000 children of low-income parents.

Willden estimates that there may be as many as 14,000 uncovered children eligible for the program, but because he's a political pragmatist, he's only asking Gov. Kenny Guinn to set aside another $6 million in his budget to cover 10,000 more kids.

There's word the governor may go for that increase when he unveils the budget on Monday, but that still could leave 4,000 children in the state with no medical insurance.

Why should even 4,000 kids be denied access to a doctor or a dentist because there's no political appetite to take care of them?

This is what happens when we forget that the ongoing tax debate is about real people. This is also why Nevada gets failing marks when it comes to taking care of children.

If business groups stopped fighting with each other over which taxes are fairest to business, and lawmakers worried more about children than their political futures, we would have no trouble getting through this budget crisis.

We should remember that if we want to make Nevada a better place to live, we have to be willing to pay for it, whether it takes $1 billion or $100 billion.

Let's start by taking care of our children so that at least we can say we have a future.