This past Tuesday evening my oldest son complained that he could not taste dinner. I did not think much of it. Perhaps he burned his tongue or something and things would eventually get better. Wednesday morning, he came to me saying half of his face felt funny and he could not fully open or close his right eye. As any parent would, I quickly went from, “It will probably be fine” to worst fears. I am lucky. Unlike the parents of over 4 million children in the U.S., my children are insured. It was not a question of whether I should risk it or not, and I certainly was not thinking about how if I took him to the doctor, I may not be able to afford my basic bills this month. I did not have to worry about what leaving work for a few hours to get my son’s medical treatment would mean to my paycheck on Friday.
At that moment, I was able to focus on my son’s needs and get him the care he needed. I did not have to question the primarily financial consequences of a doctor’s visit. We visited urgent care, where they conducted some tests and determined that they could not rule out a serious problem that they were not able to diagnose. They sent us to the emergency room. Thankfully, it was not a stroke, it is likely a condition brought on by some sort of infection that medication will resolve with no permanent damage. Left untreated, though, it could have caused permanent issues.
There is so much talk right now about protecting the children. I find it strange that in all the conversations around protecting children, we don’t seem to talk about the things that are actually harming children. You do not have to look very hard to find a news article about a drag show, a teacher talking about racism or banning books. Yet I can’t seem to find much mention of the over 4 million children in this country without health insurance. I don’t see many offering solutions for the over 11 million children in this country who live below the poverty line. I don’t find any headlines promoting programs for children who do not have food to eat in the absence of their school breakfast and lunch program. And I struggle to see how taking promised funding away from our public schools, which literally made national headlines because the facilities are falling apart, does much toward the goal of protecting children.
It seems that, in fact, all of the efforts to “protect the children” seem to be geared toward a few narrow issues and groups all but ignoring the glaring challenges that children and families face on a daily basis. To be fair, it is easier to address problems that don’t exist rather than address the ones staring you down.
David Roth was a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, District 2. He was the Democratic nominee to the U.S. Senate in 2022 as well as a member of the Bonneville County Democratic Central Committee.