No Child Left

Conservatives nationwide have hailed the decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the federal partial-birth abortion ban that passed Congress in 2003. They share their concern for the unborn and their determination that they ought to be protected and defended. But once the gestation period ends, from the approximate ages of 0-23, Republicans have shown with their policies a total lack of concern for the life, liberty and happiness of these same children, thrusting them instead into a YOYO ("you're on your own") society where they are neither protected or defended, recalling the old adage by Rep. Barney Frank that for the GOP, "life begins at conception and ends at birth."

The very act of delivering the child, which gets far less emphasis than the medical decisions made beforehand, is becoming an increasingly dangerous practice in America, particularly in the American South.

For decades, Mississippi and neighboring states with large black populations and expanses of enduring poverty made steady progress in reducing infant death. But, in what health experts call an ominous portent, progress has stalled and in recent years the death rate has risen in Mississippi and several other states.

The setbacks have raised questions about the impact of cuts in welfare and Medicaid and of poor access to doctors, and, many doctors say, the growing epidemics of obesity, diabetes and hypertension among potential mothers, some of whom tip the scales here at 300 to 400 pounds.

“I don’t think the rise is a fluke, and it’s a disturbing trend, not only in Mississippi but throughout the Southeast,” said Dr. Christina Glick, a neonatologist in Jackson, Miss., and past president of the National Perinatal Association.

To the shock of Mississippi officials, who in 2004 had seen the infant mortality rate — defined as deaths by the age of 1 year per thousand live births — fall to 9.7, the rate jumped sharply in 2005, to 11.4. The national average in 2003, the last year for which data have been compiled, was 6.9. Smaller rises also occurred in 2005 in Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee. Louisiana and South Carolina saw rises in 2004 and have not yet reported on 2005.

481 babies died during childbirth in Mississippi in 2005, and this increase tracked with drastic cuts to Medicaid for the poor.

Jamekia Brown, 22 and two months pregnant with her third child, lives next to the black people’s cemetery in the part of town called No Name, where multiple generations crowd into cheap clapboard houses and trailers.

So it took only a minute to walk to the graves of Ms. Brown’s first two children, marked with temporary metal signs because she cannot afford tombstones.

Her son, who was born with deformities in 2002, died in her arms a few months later, after surgery. Her daughter was stillborn the next year. Nearby is another green marker, for a son of Ms. Brown’s cousin who died at four months, apparently of pneumonia [...]

In 2004, Gov. Haley Barbour came to office promising not to raise taxes and to cut Medicaid. Face-to-face meetings were required for annual re-enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP, the children’s health insurance program; locations and hours for enrollment changed, and documentation requirements became more stringent.

As a result, the number of non-elderly people, mainly children, covered by the Medicaid and CHIP programs declined by 54,000 in the 2005 and 2006 fiscal years. According to the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program in Jackson, some eligible pregnant women were deterred by the new procedures from enrolling.

One former Medicaid official, Maria Morris, who resigned last year as head of an office that informed the public about eligibility, said that under the Barbour administration, her program was severely curtailed.

“The philosophy was to reduce the rolls and our activities were contrary to that policy,” she said.

And if you are cursed with the affliction of being poor in America, and yet you manage to get born, don't expect to be educated, because that money for your education has to go to rich cronies who steal it:

The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of financial conflicts of interest and cronyism, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.

The disclosure came as a congressional hearing revealed how people implementing the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program made at least $1 million off textbooks and tests toward which the federal government steered states.

"That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee, which held a five-hour investigative hearing. "You don't get to override the law," he angrily told a panel of Reading First officials. "But the fact of the matter is that you did."

Stealing money from the Reading First program is pretty low. Of course, the NCLB has always been an unfunded mandate that forces schools to "teach to the test" which rewards anyone who prints those testing materials, including the President's brother. The lesson learned by Republicans on this, of course, is to dump education altogether as a priority rather than fund initiatives that help failing schools succeed.

Meanwhile, at those schools, students are taught abstinence-only education instead of responsible sex ed, which is both completely ineffective and medically dangerous, as it gives young people precious little information on sex and contraception, thus increasing the spread of venereal disease.

And once those kids go to college and require financial aid to get the kind of education they need to compete globally, rapacious student-loan companies search private data to prey upon anyone who takes out a loan with mass mailings and the like, including the potential for identity fraud and seriosu abuse. Further, the Administration has turned over the Education Department to lending companies:

The cozy relations that developed among the Bush administration, the Republican-led Congress and the lenders have left the loan industry essentially unregulated. Some observers liken it to the Wild West: Lenders and colleges pursue their own self-interest with little regard for students or taxpayers.

Every company wants to be a college's "preferred lender," competing fiercely to get on such lists. But the dirty little secret of the guaranteed student-loan market is how concentrated it is: Only 32 lenders hold 90% of the loan volume. What's more, the Education Department has found that at about 300 colleges, one lender controls 99% of the loan volume — essentially holding a monopoly on those campuses.

Any company trying to break into the market has to rely on unconventional means. Some upstarts have promoted revenue-sharing arrangements, in which colleges get a cut of each loan that their students take out. Established lenders, worried about losing market share, have taken up similar kickback practices. One of the most egregious schemes is called an "opportunity pool," which was pioneered by loan giant Sallie Mae. Here's how it works: A lender hands a college a fixed amount of private loan money that the institution then can lend to students who otherwise wouldn't qualify for loans because of credit problems. These are private loans — ones that typically come with higher interest rates and fewer consumer protections. In return for the "opportunity pool," the college makes that company its exclusive provider of federally backed loans.

Essentially, lenders are freezing students out of any competition in the student-loan market, forcing them to accept increased rates.

So all of this concern for the children is a lot of bluster, but when you look at the facts, the Republican Party has little more than contempt for them, excepting rich scions of privilege, of course.

P.S. Maybe this is why young people are moving to Democrats more and more, because they see them as the only Party reflecting their interests. This is a great piece on rising Party star and thirtysomething Rep. Tim Ryan.