Health Policy Journal Club, November 2021

Child Poverty and the Build Back Better Act

The health policy journal club is an interdisciplinary, inter-professional group convened monthly by the Farley Health Policy Center to discuss timely topics in health policy. A curated selection of high-yield articles provides the basis for discussion. Past topics have included income inequality and health, professionalism in medicine, patients as consumers, and adjusting payment for measures of social risk. This page presents the reading list from the most recent journal club.

Readings

Child Poverty in the US and Colorado 

1. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Summary, Pages 1-18. 
2. Kids Count in Colorado! 2021. Colorado Children's Campaign. Family Economic Security. Pages 44-47. 

Build Back Better Act

1. Trisi D, Mazzara A, Lueck S, Romig K, Fenton G, Balmaceda J, Gonzales S, Gwyn N. House Build Back Better Legislation Advances Racial Equity. September 27, 2021. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 
2. Reject Biden's $3.5 Trillion Tax, Debt, and Spending Disaster. Heritage Action for America.  

Summary 

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine was charged with studying child poverty and identifying evidence-based policies and programs that would decrease the number of kids living in poverty by half within 10 years. The report, published in 2019, lays out the evidence linking child poverty to negative outcomes and examines packages of policy options to meet the target of decreasing child poverty by half. The report estimates the cost of these policy packages ($90-110 billion) as significantly less than the costs of child poverty in the absence of further intervention ($800 billion-1.1 trillion). The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 built on these recommendations with short term policies. The proposed Build Back Better Act would extend and add to these poverty-reducing policies (in addition to other priorities) in the longer term.