A big beautiful bill will make Florida children sick and poor

Children are the biggest victims of the pre-Congress settlement bill.

This month, Senate debates are taking steps to significantly reduce federal spending on key children’s programs, including Medicaid, Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Package (SNAP), and Child Tax Policy. As the bill passed the House of Representatives last month with a one-vote margin, it needs to defend a critical support system that millions of children rely on disproportionately.

Pediatricians like me are opposed to these budget cuts.

The proposed $800 billion cut in Medicaid funds is unprecedented and surprising, putting child health insurance at risk. Unlike Medicare, Medicaid is a state-federal partnership. The costs are jointly shared by the federal and state governments. Medicaid alone accounts for about a quarter of the state’s total budget. A significant reduction in Medicaid’s national share will force states to cut their scope and reduce eligibility and profits.

This means that my few patients will be able to get tested and get basic vaccinations. This means that there is less chance that pediatricians will be able to discover issues such as autism, perform lead screenings, and there are fewer opportunities to update medications for children with conditions such as diabetes or asthma.

Medicaid Cut aims directly to pregnant women with low income children AMD. Almost half of all children in the US (37 million) are registered with Medicaid. In Florida, 60% of children rely on the program, covering more than half of Sunshine State children with special medical needs. Overall, 16 million people will lose compensation under this measure. Reducing profits on this scale will result in the closure of financially bound community hospitals. Over 40% of pregnant women receive prenatal and birth care through Medicaid, and receive 162,000 mothers in Florida alone. For these women, the budget bill does not mean prenatal care, sick mothers, sick babies.

The bill also targets the SNAP program with a 30% cut, accounting for $300 billion. It is estimated that it consumes food from over 1 million hungry children each month. The most basic and important sign for a child is their ability to maintain a healthy weight. Poor children consume cheaper and unhealthy junk food, and a fifth of families with children are food insecurity.

Obese children in our clinic receive a “prescription” of healthy foods, and SNAP allows them to “prescribe” vegetables, fruits, lean proteins and milk. Nationally, 13.8 million people rely on SNAP, and 2.9 million children (or eighth) residents in Florida use this benefit.

Cutting SNAP funds will create the latest version of the panline. Because hungry children and families are on waiting lists to help. Rather than reimbursing the federal government’s most important prevention prevention program, Congress should fund ways to register more children. Only 18% of all SNAP-qualified individuals are enrolled in the program.

Not satisfied with making children sick and starving, the Senate is debating change and making children poor. Children are the poorest members of our society, and poverty is the most common illness of childhood, associated with reduced educational achievement, overuse of emergency care for daily care, and more hospitalizations. The already announced 2023 Children and Earned Income Tax Credit Program has freed over 3.4 million children from poverty. These programs have not been updated in the bill.

We’ve seen the benefits of the extra money that these tax credits are offered directly at our hospitals and clinics. At the time, parents could afford diapers, baby formula and groceries. Several families were able to stay in the apartment and met with rent escalating with the extra money. For over a decade, families benefiting from these tax credits have demonstrated that they use extra money on food, rent and housing.

The current bill instead excludes 4.5 million children living in mixed immigration status households from benefits, and 20 million children, including one million in Florida, excludes receiving $2,000 in credits from $2,000 in credits because families are earning too low.

That’s correct. These children live in families that are too poor to receive extra financial support to help pay for gas, diapers and housing.

These massive cuts are disguised as children’s programs and are allowing cost-saving to the backs of the most vulnerable children as a “belt fastening” on budgets. The Senate must recognize what doctors already know. The passage of this measure is a financial attack on children’s health care.

Pediatricians, parents and families protect their children. Senators should do the same.

Shetal Shah is a former chairman of the National Council on Pediatric Policy and a practitioner of pediatricians and neonatologists.