Advocates for children’s issues are blasting the Florida budget signed by Gov. Rick Scott last month, as it cuts millions of dollars in services that help children.
Although Florida ranks 49th nation-wide in healthcare for kids, Scott and his Republican wrecking crew in Tallahassee, slashed the Healthy Start program which provides prenatal care by $5.4 million or 11.5 percent, and gutted another voluntary state pre-kindergarten program by $30 million.
Among those distressed at the deep cuts in children’s health care services is Senator Nan Rich, the Senate Democratic Leader who rejected her efforts to insure for free the children of state workers or take other steps to qualify for more federal funds for children’s health. Rich said too that hospital cuts will fall on the young.
“Children’s hospitals were cut four percent,” said Rich. “That’s very hard for them to make up, because they have 67 percent Medicaid patients.”
Given the cuts in the 2011-2012 budget, some children advocates are predicting that infant mortality and low-birth weights rates will increase.
“We think (the reduction) will mean there will be higher infant mortality rates and higher low-birth-weight rates,” said Ann Davis, executive director of Capital Area Health Start. She added that economic pressure on families also takes its toll on such figures. “The economy is very much involved in all of this.”
David Lawrence, co-founder of the Children’s Movement of Florida started a radio campaign blasting lawmakers for “shoddy and shameful” treatment of children.
Lawrence, last fall, led a statewide tour on children’s issues, culminating in a list of legislative priorities. He said he had met with Scott twice before his election, and then with Senate President Mike Haridopolos, House Speaker Dean Cannon and other lawmakers.
“Every time, I was told, ‘We are with you,'” Lawrence said. “But they are not with us.”
Lawrence said, when the budget was approved, children’s advocates were “disappointed, dismayed and discouraged. Frankly, I’m sitting here fielding e-mails from a bunch of people who are, to be honest about it, feeling angry at being disrespected.”
While lawmakers spared the Healthy Families program which supports good parenting and added 22,000 slots to KidCare, no state ranks lower that Florida in children’s access to dental care.
David Wilkins, the Scott’s administration’s secretary of the Department of Children and Families said he was pleased with the budget lawmakers had passed.
“We got almost everything we were pushing for,” said Wilkins. “I’m very pleased that we have what we need to protect those kids.”
