Governor pushes expansion of insurance program for poor children

Governor Vilsack wants more Iowa kids eligible for government-financedinsurance, but Republican legislators aren’t ready to make the move. Vilsack says statistics show kids who aren’t covered by health insurancemiss 25 percent more school. Vilsack wants legislators to expand a newstate program which provides health care coverage for Iowa kids who are inpoor families. It’s call the HAWK-I program. Vilsack proposes spendingthree-quarters of a million dollars to provide basic health care to kids infamilies at 200 percent of the poverty level. That’d be an annual income of33-thousand dollars for a family of four. He says that 33-thousand dollarsdoesn’t stretch very far, and parents forego the thousands of dollars healthcare coverage costs rather than give up food, clothing or paying taxes. Republicans say they’re not interested in expanding the health care programfor needy kids as it’s just started this year. Others question whether afamily of four with 33-thousand dollars in income might be “middle class”rather than poor.