In all of these cases, the wider community should step in to provide health care to its most vulnerable members. This can be accomplished through religious institutions, charities, pro bono work by doctors and other health care professionals, but it seems to me that the best way to ensure that children do not fall through the cracks is a universal health care plan. Private charitable solutions to the problem are, by their very nature, going to be uneven -- alleviating the problem to a certain degree, but still leaving inner city or rural communities lacking in resources compared to suburban communities.

While universal health care might seem to be the government shouldering parents' burdens, this is only part of the story. Parents' taxes would, obviously, represent part of the funding for their children's health coverage. But even more important, parents would still be responsible for ensuring their children take advantage of the health care provided by such a system, choosing primary care physicians and specialists as needed, taking their children to regular checkups and for special care as needed. All that would change is that every child, every legal resident, would have equal access to health care, as opposed to the current situation where poor residents have little or no access, while the rich are able to receive elective treatments, often at immense cost.

It is mind-boggling that in our society Hollywood starlets can boost their busts, trim their tushes, and erase their wrinkles, while thousands upon thousands of children grow up seeing medical professionals only in emergency situations.

A society that refuses to take care of large portions of the next generation is one that is sowing the seeds of downfall for itself. Whether it be in the lopsided educational system, or the uneven health care system, America is condemning whole segments of our society to substandard conditions when compared with their neighbors and fellow citizens. Unfortunately we have short-sighted and selfish policies that harm not only those segments, but the nation as a whole. Children who don't receive adequate education are more likely to be a drain on the nation's resources when they grow up. Children who don't receive adequate health care are also more likely to become drains on our health care resources as poor medical care in youth results in greater health problems as an adult.

That calculation, of course, doesn't even begin to address the potential cost to the child him or herself. It seems the height of immorality, when we have the capability to ensure adequate health care -- or education -- for every individual to then make the choice to allow some individuals to fall through the cracks. To choose personal gain for certain individuals over the welfare of every individual in that society is simply untenable. You might even call it evil.