Bush Administration Should Grant Healthy Families Expansion Waiver ‘Now,’ Chronicle Says

President Bush should "act now" to approve a waiver allowing California to expand Healthy Families coverage to an additional 130,000 eligible children and 320,000 low-income parents, a San Francisco Chronicle editorial says. The editorial maintains that there is a "whiff of politics in the feds' foot-dragging" on California's request, pointing out that the administration has already approved a similar waiver for Wisconsin, home of HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson. The editorial says that Bush "should be held to the comforting words of his radio address earlier this month when he said, 'My administration cares about results, about getting Americans broader and better medical coverage.'" Noting that reducing the number of uninsured residents has been a "widely embraced goal of public policy since the collapse of the Clinton administration's search for consensus on universal medical coverage," the editorial concludes, "The strategy should be pursued in California as well as in places the administration deems more friendly" (San Francisco Chronicle, 8/10).