Policy & Practice
Partisan Views on Health Reform
While 82% of Democrats agreed that “it is the government's duty to ensure that all Americans have adequate health care coverage,” only 47% of Republicans agreed with that statement, according to a
Arkansas Reworks BMI Program
Arkansas' 4-year-old program to combat childhood obesity, which includes mandatory school-based body mass index screenings, appears to have halted the rise in the obesity rate for the state's children. A report released last month showed that nearly 21% of tested schoolchildren were overweight last year, while just over 17% were at risk for being overweight, about the same figures as the previous year. However, a new state law has reduced screenings to every other year and makes it easier for parents to opt out their children, leading some health experts in the state to voice fears that the changes could weaken the successful program. But Arkansas Surgeon General Dr. Joe Thompson said in an interview that scaling back the screenings will allow schools to concentrate scarce resources on the children and families who need the most help battling obesity.
