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MAY 16-22,1
LEITERS
THE CITIZEN PAGE FIVE
CHILD
TCH
One
By W· t Edelman
To a mother, the needs of each of her
children are equally important. The
ultimate agony would be having 0
choo which of her children would live
nd which would die.
That i precisely the choice facing
member of Congr , who may soon
choo hich of three equally needy
group of poor children and pregnant
women are "de rving enough" of basic
immunizations, visit to the doctor'
office hen we're sick.·
Over the next fe week, members
of the House and Senate will be meeting
to iron ou t differences in their budget
propo I for the coming year. At stake
are three separate proposals to provide
urgently needed preventiv health care
to three different groups of poor women
and children. In order to achieve minimal
federal vings, the members of Con­
gre will be tempted to pit the pro­
posal and th poor children they affect
again each other.
All three proposal involve edicaid,
th most important source of health care
for million of I low-income omen and
children, accounting for over half of the
public health money pent on childre .
ithout edicaid eight out of ten poor
children ould be completely uninsured.
Even ith edicaid, almo t nine mil­
lion children ha e no known source
of regular health care, and one in 11 non-
hite pregnant om n receives I te or
no prenatal care.
HOUSE ILL HELPS 3 G OUPS
The House budget proposals ould
help three groups of poor omen and
children. CHAP or the Child Health­
A urance Program ould help very
poor pregnant omen and children
undes fi e in over 20 state who have
never had a edicaid card simply becau
Co
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co
d'
De r Editor:
Good ne or b d ne
n ark Siljander
Fourth Congr ional District d come
to deli r some n go pel.
On Thursday, y 3rd, Siljander
't in Grenda glorifying an inv . on,
or in Israel glorifying an inn . on, or in
Beirut glorifying a "peacekeeping" in­
va ion, or in Paris on the tab of corporate
friends. He also wasn't in Sturgi , where
the Rotary Club set up the first debate
between the two Republican and two
Democratic candidates for the Fourth
District at in Congre ,which he hap­
pens to hold. Everyone else came and
e.
zen
Published each Wednesday at
219 East Main street
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Phone: 616/927-1527
by
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Charles Kelly, Publisher
or child is not needier than another
they live in two-parent familie and their
tate only provides edicald to mothers
and children in single-parent families.
Poor working families who 10 t or
stand to 10 their welfare and Medicaid
benefits because of federal budget cut
pa d in 1981 would be helped by a
proposal to continue providing them with
edicaid card for at least nine months J
after their welfare benefits run out.
Almost 500 ()()() families lost welfare
benefits under Aid to Families with
Dependent Children because of the
1981 budget cuts. any of these families
have been without health insurance for
three years.
Finally, the House budget would
protect tho children and pregnant
women who w hold edicaid cards
by lowering a fmancial penalty on state
that has led many states to reduce OT
eliminate health care benefits for the
10 million children who receive edicaid.
The Hou e' modest efforts to improve
care for poor mothers and children from
two-parent or working poor families
are in danger of being traded off to
prevent additional, deep cuts in Medicaid
that have been proposed by the Senate.
These cuts of 1.3 billion over the next
three years would hurt some of the very
mothers and children the Hou is trying
to help.
SELECTIVE HELP IS CRUEL
To choo between desperately needy
. children . particularly cruel at a time
when one in two Black children i poor,
when the percentage of poor children
receiving Medicaid has already fallen
sharply, and when poor pregnant women
are less and le likely to receive prenatal
care to ensure that their children are
born healthy. Already, we have seen a
ow rise in infant death rates among
some group of poor B ck children in
iljand
di
r ha
rict
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I
poke and an wered the people's ques­
tion . Siljander sent an aide who said no­
thing answered no questions - just tape­
recorded the other candidates' remarks
for future reference and attack.
But, 10 and behold, by Friday, May
4th, Siljander made not one great di -
covery, but two. He discovered there
really is a Fourth District and was seen al­
most all day in South Haven delivering
his new gospel. He and the Lord have
jointly decreed that his Republican oppo­
nent, Tim Horan, is really a Democrat. .
o doubt this will force the mere secular
authorities to shift Huron from the Re­
publican ballot in the August 7th primary
to the Democratic ballot, saving Siljander
not only the discomfort of having to put
his ideas to the test of debate, but his seat
in the House to the risk of being booted
out. Truly a great discovery!
About all Siljander neglected to do
when he uddenly urfaced in the Fourth
District was denonuce the Sturgi Rotary
Club a a bunch of Democrats and renew
his call for burning books in iles and
Three Rivers, where the Klan, azis and
Siljander unearthed SIN in the public
library a while back.
f leRoy Wolin
Pu!lman, ichigan
some states. Thi trend must not be
allowed to continue.
Members of C ngre must resist
choosing between poor children becau
it is unjust and fiscally' short- ighted.
There are other, fairer choices the Con­
gress can make to curb federal deficit
without hurting children. It is intoler­
able th t America is number one in the
world in military spending but number
16 in keeping its infant alive in the fir t
year of life:
-Each wee , 211 American children
die from poor maternal and child health
and nutrition, while we continue to
underfund preventive health program
by $6.2 million and sub' dize tobacco
growers by 3.3 million a week.
Co·ued p 4
Sl'ai n Grenadian leader's
speeches 'compiled ,/tEV W
Maurice Bishop Speaks: The Grenada
Revolution 1979-83
Pathfinder Press, New York
By Terence Samuel, Editor;The Campus,
City College of Yolk
Maurice Bishop was no Winston
Churchill, Martin Luther King' nor even
a Jesse Jackson when it came to making
speeches, but he was no slouch either.
His speeches had a focus that made him
one of the most easily understood in,
probably, aU of the western world.
What his speeches do quite well, i
give you a very direct sen of what this
man was about and what he thought his
revolution was about. Mt1¥rice Bishop
Speaks: The Grenada Revelution 1979-
83, published by Pathfinder Pre is
a collection of Bi hop's speeches given
during his four year as Grenada's chief
executive. They are pee e iven at
home and abroad.
The peeches are direct to th
point. Bishop was eking quite overtly
to, and above anything else, improv
the living condition under which the
peopl of Grenada lived. Part of th
ra , in his judgment wa to remove
Grenada from the chains of U.S. and
European imperialirns.
"Our speeches therefore, must be
measured in how much we can cut
through the chains that have bound u
to their system, how rapidly we can
immunize our economy to their reces-
ions, how quickly we create our own
economic If-reliance that 'will keep u
trong no matter what happens to the
capitali t world."
If you ever heard Bish p spea , you
kno he had an unrelenting logic that
mad him seem to bubbl over ith
h nesty. He had that wide open way of
pronouncing hi word that i characteri -
ti ally West Indian. Both his rowdy
intelligence, probably a result of his
Engli h legal training, and his "hom
town boy under tanding" that the e t
Indi does not fit into eat ea t or est
ideology, how them elves clearly. Bis­
hop wa a rev lutionary by any tandard.
He wa what a re olution ere upp d
to b bout. H car d about what he a
d in . kne what he anted to d .
and h dared to do it.
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