By Charron Townsend

When it comes to improving health care access and other goals for children, Missouri’s recent legislative session can be summed up as small victories amid big disappointments. After an election year filled with campaign rhetoric about helping children, it appears that most promises went unfulfilled.

Given the financial climate in the state and country, we do feel fortunate that programs for children and families largely escaped cuts in their budgets. One prime example is our ability to continue the funding that allows families to take uninsured sick children to certain qualified medical facilities and receive treatment under the presumption that they are eligible for state children’s health insurance enrollment.

But health-care expansion has to be at the top of the disappointment list. Particularly troubling was the failure of proposals to expand health-care coverage to 27,000 uninsured children and to insure an additional 35,000 low-income parents. Children are more likely to be enrolled in health-care coverage if their parents are covered. In denying parents coverage, lawmakers have made it more difficult for children to get the preventive care that keeps them well.

Another disappointment was failure again this year of the proposed Quality Rating System for child-care programs. It would help parents assess the quality of care and education their children are getting. Gains were made though as the House approved the legislation for the first time. However, it later was defeated in legislative wrangling over a massive education bill.The House vote for the legislation, however, should encourage children’s advocates to try again next year.

During these tough economic times, it is important to enact policies that help people to hold down jobs and continue to provide for their families. A major victory this year was hard-fought legislative approval to spend $42 million in federal stimulus dollars.

Other successes for children and youth include stronger physical education requirements, a “Foster Care Education Bill of Rights,” a $1.6 million increase in the state’s allowance to foster parents so they can purchase clothing and diapers for the abused and neglected children in their care, a state council to coordinate education from pre-kindergarten through college, a fund to support drop-out prevention efforts in school districts and a Child Witness Protection Act to help children who must testify in judicial proceedings.

The 2009 session particularly was disappointing for children’s health care, but we are confident that Governor Nixon will do what he can to reach out to families with children who are eligible but not yet enrolled in the state’s children’s insurance plan.

Charron Townsend is President of Partnership for Children,a Kansas City-based nonprofit organization dedicated to improving life for children and youth.

By Susan Lacey, RN, PhD, FAAN

There is no doubt that the financial crisis has translated into millions of lost jobs, home foreclosures as well as a sense of frustration and uncertainty that is clouding almost everything we do.

The nursing profession has been characterized as ‘recession proof’. That is a good thing for those of us who have chosen this career. Regardless of what is happening in the larger society, health care goods and services will always need to be consumed – babies need to be born and people will continue to get sick and need to access the health care system.

So, what does this mean in terms of the profession and the future? One of the things it means is that for a very short period time, there will ‘appear’ to be less of a nursing shortage, but we must not perceive that during this time, the nursing shortage is over.

Why? Two reasons. First, the demand for nurses has not even started in earnest as the graying of America accelerates. The first of the 77 million Baby Boomers may start to retire next year. This is when the majority of healthcare goods and services is consumed. And secondly, nurses who have stayed in the workforce longer than anticipated will eventually retire and who is going to replace them? More nurses will retire than are entering the workforce. In other words we have not even started feeling the nursing shortage.

We can either rest on the notion that all is well and there is no nursing shortage looming or we can respond with a comprehensive strategy that encompasses these 'blips' on the radar. Legislators need to keep nursing first and foremost in mind when crafting healthcare reform and continuing to support legislation for increasing funds for nursing education.

If nursing does not find a way to create innovative strategies for these times, then unfortunately our fate will be dictated by others outside the profession. Let us all work together for new ways of thinking about nursing and better use of these professionals in a time when, even during a lull, they are most in demand.



Susan Lacey is the Director of the Bi-State Nursing Workforce Innovation Center and the Director of Nursing Workforce and Systems Analysis at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Missouri, an ANCC Magnet hospital. For more information, visit www.nursinginnovation.org.

by Lora McDonald, Kansas City Metropolitan Crime Commission

The Kansas City Metropolitan Crime Commission, through the Second Chance Program, has created a metro wide strategy to respond to prisoner reentry, reducing recidivism and increasing public safety, through research, advocacy and funding programs. They have developed the Kansas City Metropolitan Reentry Coalition which responds to issues that impact people returning to community from incarceration. Senate Bill 34 addresses an important reentry issue.

Senate Bill 34, sponsored by Senator Yvonne Wilson of Kansas City, was designed to lift the Food Stamp ban for people with felony drug convictions in Missouri. In 1996, under the Clinton Administration, states were allowed to “opt out” of providing Food Stamps to people who had any drug related felony. Missouri adopted a lifetime ban, whereby no one convicted of a drug related felony can ever get Food Stamps in this state. Kansas adopted this also but smartly reversed their ban in 2005. Missouri is one of 13 states continuing to deny Food Stamps to otherwise eligible people with drug related felonies.

Should drug offenders get Food Stamps? The reality is that it more broadly impacts people than one could imagine. Consider, for example, the woman who has completed probation, regained her sobriety and has been in recovery while working, paying taxes and voting. She has been raising her family successfully for years and now gets laid off under the current economy. She can not get Food Stamps (her children can) and will suffer consequences for a mistake in her distant past. The Bill was unanimously voted out of committee but needs your support to pass!

If you would like to learn more about Senate Bill 34, or the Kansas City Metropolitan Reentry Coalition, contact Lora McDonald at (816)285-8668 or lmcdonald@kc-crime.org .

By Senator Chris Steineger

Socialized medicine is:

Socialized medicine is where the government collects taxes from everyone, then gives out some sort of health care benefit.

Socialized medicine is where the government owns & operates the payer system that pays the bills.

Socialized medicine is where the government owns & operates the hospitals.

Socialized medicine is where the Doctors, nurses, orderlies and other health workers are all government employees.

Socialized medicine is a system that offers few if any choices if you want to use it. Little to no choice of doctor, hospital, etc.

The Veterans Administration health system is socialized medicine defacto because every American pays taxes to the federal government; because the government owns & controls the payment system; because the government builds & owns the V.A. hospitals; because the Doctors, nurse and other staff are government employees.
The V.A. provides the lowest cost per capita health care in the United States. Administrative costs are extremely low. The V.A. negotiates discounts from pharmaceutical and has the lowest cost prescriptions in the U.S. Marketing costs are non existent and the V.A. does not have lobbyists making campaign contributions to politicians.


Other "socialized systems" in the U.S.A. where we all pay taxes, then share a common benefit: the interstate highway system; air traffic control; food inspection; the national electric grid; U.S. Post Office; U.S. Customs; the U.S. military


Senator Chris Steineger represents the 6th district of Kansas, which includes portions of Kansas City and Edwardsville. Currently in his fourth term, Senator Steineger is the ranking member of the Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee and also sits on: the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules and Regulations; the Committee on Assessment and Taxation; the Committee on Education; the Joint Committee on Information Technology; and the Joint Committee on Legislative Post Audit.