Rationing without justice: children and the American health system.

moreover, the federal government and some states, responding to the growing economic burdens created by the program, frequently aim their budget cutting knives at expenditures on women and children, who are without the political defenses needed to fight back. The United States offers children no floor of health care decency as it does for the elderly through the Medicare program. There is no body of case law, no constitutional guarantee, that assures all children access to comprehensive, basic health care regardless of ability to pay. Instead, children who today are the poorest Americans are also among the most likely to be medically underserved. The consequences of this cumulative, national neglect of children are found in neonatal intensive care wards, hospital emergency clinics, special education programs for disabled