Copyright 2000 The Columbus Dispatch
The Columbus
Dispatch
September 22, 2000, Friday
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 7C
LENGTH: 573 words
HEADLINE:
O'SHAUGHNESSY PUSHES HEALTH AID FOR KIDS
BODY:
Pushing her
health-care agenda, Democrat Maryellen O'Shaughnessy yesterday
proposed expanding a free health-insurance program for children
to make more low-income youth eligible for benefits.
O'Shaughnessy,
running for Ohio's 12th Congressional District seat, said too many children
remain uninsured.
An estimated 11 million children and
33 million adults lack health insurance in the United States.
O'Shaughnessy wants to expand the federally funded Children's Health Insurance
Program to youth in families earning as much as 250 percent of the federal
poverty level -- about $ 41,000 a year for a family of four.
Vice
President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, made the same proposal
earlier this year.
"It's a great program, but I think we can do
better,'' O'Shaughnessy said.
The Columbus City Council member said
rough estimates indicate the expansion could cost as much as $ 50 billion over
10 years.
She said the money would be a "great investment'' because the
program keeps kids out of emergency rooms and keeps them healthy.
The
insurance program, like Head Start for preschoolers and the federal free and
reduced- price lunch program, helps children do better at school, she said.
Congress created the program in 1997, allowing states to set their own
criteria. Under Ohio's program, known as Healthy Start, children in families
earning as much as 200 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible, the
maximum allowed under current federal guidelines. About 70,000 are enrolled, an
estimated 55 percent of those who qualify.
O'Shaughnessy also wants to
extend benefits to parents with incomes as high as 150 percent of the federal
poverty level. Currently in Ohio, parents earning as much as 100 percent
qualify.
In addition, she wants to offer financial rewards for states
meeting enrollment targets and simplify enrollment by linking the applications
with one for the school lunch program.
Her opponent, Republican state
Rep. Pat Tiberi of Columbus said yesterday that he supported the recent
expansion of the insurance program to children in families earning as much as
200 percent of the federal poverty level but wasn't ready to take it to 250
percent.
"Before I would commit to expanding the program again, I would
have to talk to the folks in the trenches who administer the program to see what
impact this would have on their budgets and what type of need we have in Ohio,''
Tiberi said.
-- Catherine Candisky
Trial lawyers give
endorsements
in Franklin County judicial races
The Franklin
County Trial Lawyers Association has endorsed Republican Harland H. Hale to
succeed retiring Judge George W. Twyford on the Franklin County Court of
Domestic Relations.
Hale, an assistant county prosecutor, is opposed by
Democrat Carole Squire, a Columbus lawyer.
The trial lawyers endorsed
sitting judges for the remaining local judgeships, two incumbent Democrats on
the Franklin County Court of Appeals, Judges Cynthia Lazarus and Peggy L.
Bryant, and incumbent Republicans for benches on the common pleas and domestic
relations courts.
The endorsed judges include John F. Bender, who was
appointed in April to the common pleas bench. Others endorsed for the common
pleas court are Judges Lisa Sadler, David E. Cain, John P. Bessey, David L.
Johnson and Dale A. Crawford; and for the domestic-relations court, judges Kay
Lias and Jim Mason.
-- James Bradshaw
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2000
