Editorial: Nevada Check-Up a success

Thursday, May 8, 2003 | 8:47 a.m.

It is encouraging that a Senate-Assembly budget subcommittee endorsed a program this week that provides state-subsidized health insurance for children from lower-income families. The panel recommended that the Legislature pass a two-year appropriation of $73 million for Nevada Check-Up, a state-federal program where the federal government absorbs most of the costs -- roughly $50 million. The growth of the program has slowed in recent years, but enrollment is expected to reach 31,023 children by 2005.

One change proposed for the program is to require eligible families to pay slightly more to enroll their children, to offset some of the increasing costs of the health insurance program. Currently the average annual premium for families is $36 a year. The increase in the quarterly premium being proposed is based on a sliding scale of how much families earn, with the increases ranging from $5 a quarter to $20 a quarter, a nominal increase that shouldn't deter people from either staying in the program or enrolling.

Nevada Check-Up is a state-federal partnership that offers a number of benefits to the state of Nevada and its local governments. If a child sees a doctor regularly, then there is less likelihood that illnesses or diseases will go untreated, possibly in some cases becoming so serious that they require hospitalization. Patients without insurance frequently end up at our county-operated hospital, a situation that costs taxpayers much more financially in the long run than if the uninsured had received care at the outset in a doctor's office. More importantly, a child shouldn't have to suffer and go without immediate medical care just because his parents don't make enough money to afford health insurance.

Nevada Check-Up, since it only deals with children, isn't the answer to solving our uninsured problem in the state. Nonetheless, it is exactly the kind of program that deserves continued support by the Legislature and the federal government.