Obama plan funds nurse visits to new moms

[impik]

Here's another campaign promise being kept (Not that it's going to matter here):

div class="excerpt"]As a candidate, Mr. Obama touted the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), founded in the late 1970s by psychologist David Olds.

"This program saves money," Mr. Obama said in 2007. "It raises healthy babies and creates better parents. It reduced childhood injuries and unintended pregnancies, increased father involvement and women's employment, reduced use of welfare and food stamps, and increased children's school readiness. And it produced more than $28,000 in net savings for every high-risk family enrolled in the program.

"I will expand the Nurse-Family Partnership to provide at-home nurse visits for up to 570,000 first-time mothers each year," Mr. Obama promised.

The Obama administration kept its word. Its first budget called for a home-visitation program for new mothers costing $8.6 billion over 10 years. The home-visit program is now embedded in health care reform, costing $750 million over five years in the House bill and $1.5 billion in the Senate bill.

[Cha]

1. A better start for those new moms who

need it.

[NJmaverick]

2. It's all these small changes that are going to quietly make a big difference

[CTyankee]

3. They have this in Finland as my conversation with a young mom who had first hand experience

with it told me. She is an American and was married to a Finn. I asked her about her experience with the health care system during her pregnancy and after. It was amazing and she was SO pleased. Childbirth typically involves a 4 night stay but they wanted to keep her an extra night to make sure her nursing was getting established. Then she had house calls with her newborn from the nurse assigned to her. She said she always challenges other Americans here who tell her socialized medicine is terrible...I love it!

[cali]

6. We've had this in Vermont for years. n/t

[Clio the Leo]

4. Obama + mental image of a baby = joy

.... at least it does for me. I realize this is not a thought shared by your average wingnut.

[depakid]

5. "this is not a thought shared by your average wingnut. "

Actually, this is an association as old as politics itself.

[Clio the Leo]

7. But not when it comes to Obama....

.... sadly, when the wingnuts speak of THIS President and babies, they usually have a much more gruesome image in mind.

[depakid]

8. Well, Bush tried to do the baby thing, too- lol- without much luck

so the angle was to stress that he keeps your families safe.

btw: this is a good program if implemented properly. As Cali notes, Vermont has had a similar deal for some time, and the British NHS takes it quite a few steps further.

In Australia, new mothers actually get a nice little stipend called a 'baby bonus" following the birth (including stillborn babies) or adoption of a child, to cope with the extra costs and demands incurred.

[Clio the Leo]

9. Well unfortunately, too many here in the US are more concerned...

... with babies before they're born and consider some of them "welfare leeches" the second after they're born. Gladly, Barack Obama is not one of them.

[depakid]

10. True- but my bet is that Obama would sign a bill with abortion restrictions

so what it really comes down to is what the administration is willing to accept- or fight for and against.