UPDATE: White House Acts to Limit Health Plan for Children

The Bush Administration has implemented new standards that limit the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The administration has adopted these standards in order to restore the program to its original focus on low-income children. When the SCHIP was created in 1997, the purpose was to provide coverage to children of low-income families, and the execution of this program was to be determined by the state. The only stipulation was that this program could not be a replacement for private coverage. To prevent children from switching from private coverage to the public SCHIP, the administration suggests that states create a waiting period before considering children eligible for the public program.

Now, in order for states to make individual changes to SCHIP, they must first demonstrate that they have enrolled at least 95% of children below 200% of the poverty level. “Deborah S. Bachrach, a deputy commissioner in the New York State Health Department, said, ‘No state in the nation has a participation rate of 95 percent.’” Several states, including New York and New Jersey feel these new standards will be impossible to meet and will hinder efforts to insure more children.

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UPDATE: Women's March Into Office Slows

Although women represent the majority of votes in major elections, they only hold 1 out of every 6 elected Federal positions and 1 out of every 4 elected State positions. Debbie Walsh, Director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, a NCRW member center, observes, “We’ve hit a plateau.” Although Hillary Clinton could be elected President in 2008, and Nancy Pelosi is in little danger of losing her Speaker of the House title, several other women governors, senators, and congresswomen are at risk of losing their positions in the next election.

This plateau has occurred for a number of reasons, according to experts. Several of the major issues ruling the 2008 elections, including Iraq, national security, and immigration, are issues that have traditionally been gendered “masculine,” and therefore, women candidates are not perceived as desirable or capable. Research by political scientist Jennifer Lawless at Brown University shows that women are less likely than men to enter into competitive races, and women are even less likely to enter into the race when opposing another woman. Despite women’s reluctance to run for office, however, Lawless’ research shows that women candidates are as likely to win as men.

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NEW: The Color of Health Care: Diagnosing Bias in Doctors

A recent study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and other Harvard University affiliates reveals evidence that quality of health care is linked to deeply-rooted internalized racial stereotyping. The study showed that doctors with subconscious racial biases were less likely to prescribe aggressive heart attack treatment for black patients than for white patients.

Researchers used the Implicit Association Test to determine doctors’ biases. Doctors were then given a case study of a man who entered the emergency room with severe chest pain. The patient was described as “white” to some doctors and as “black” to others. Doctors who were told that the patient was white were more likely to believe that he was having a heart attack than doctors who were told that the patient was black.


Click here to download the published study.

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