PUBLIC CHARGE: Feds Should ‘Quit Stalling on Kids’ Health Care’

      The "federal government should end its stalling and bureaucratic gobbledygook and resolve" the problem of immigrants not signing their children up for publicly funded health care programs because they fear reprisal from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Sacramento Bee columnist John Jacobs writes. "For the past 10 months, a variety of California agencies, public officials ... and community-based organizations have asked the federal government to clarify whether the public charge provision applies to the Healthy Families program," but they "have yet to get a definitive answer, and they are frustrated," he said. Jacobs concludes: "The Clinton administration says it cares about equal access to health care, about the working poor, about Latino immigrants, about California. ... Last time anyone checked, Doris Meissner at INS, Donna Shalala at HHS and Madeleine Albright at the State Department all work for the Clinton-Gore administration. So what's taking so long?" (3/18).