ALL CHILDREN ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL: PRWORA'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTION ON IMMIGRANT CHILDREN'S ACCESS TO FEDERAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAMS

The lack of health insurance for children is a serious problem in the United States, especially for those children in families that earn too little to get private health insurance and too much to qualify for Medicare. Even within this subclass of children, immigrant children are particularly vulnerable to the problems faced by lack of health care. Nevertheless, with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) by Congress, equality interests of low‐income immigrant children are undermined when immigrant children are denied federal benefits for the first 5 years of residency in the United States. The first part of this Note examines the importance of child health care and the long‐term problems with uninsured children, especially with uninsured immigrant children and pregnant women. The next part introduces Medicaid as well as State Children's Health Insurance Program, a supplemental federal program designed to increase health care coverage to all children, while contrasting these programs in light of the restrictive anti‐immigrant PRWORA provisions. The third part explains the passage of PRWORA, its anti‐immigrant provisions, and how these provisions prevent needy immigrant children from receiving federally funded health care. Then, the fourth part uses both the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to argue the unconstitutionality of the anti‐immigrant provisions. Finally, the last part lays out the recommendation to amend the Social Security Act so that the PRWORA barriers can be removed and recent immigrant children can receive federally funded health care.     

A Multiple–Indicator Approach to Municipal Service Evaluation: Correlating Performance Measurement and Citizen Satisfaction across Jurisdictions

Early work on municipal service–quality assessment recommended multiple measures of performance from both providers and users. Citizen satisfaction surveys have rivaled their more quantitative counterpart, administrative performance measures, in adoption, but the implication of survey results for action is not well understood by managers or scholars. To achieve meaningfully integrated multiple measures of service quality, we need to explore the dimensions of citizen satisfaction and review patterns of satisfaction across localities. We also need to understand the relationship between administrative performance measures and citizen perceptions. This cross–sectional analysis of municipal citizen satisfaction and performance benchmark data suggests that citizen satisfaction survey results are useful to managers in conjunction with performance–measurement programs as part of a multiple–indicator approach to evaluating municipal service quality. However, understanding citizen perceptions requires a different perspective than that applied to administrative service performance measurement.     

Cue‐Taking in Congress: Interest Group Signals from Dear Colleague Letters

Why do some pieces of legislation move forward while others languish? We address this fundamental question by examining the role of interest groups in Congress, specifically the effect of their legislative endorsements in Dear Colleague letters. These letters provide insights into the information that members use to both influence and make policy decisions. We demonstrate that endorsements from particularly well‐connected interest groups are a strong cue for members with limited information early in the legislative process and help grow the list of bill cosponsors. As bills progress, such groups have less direct weight, while legislation supported by a larger number of organizations and a larger number of cosponsors is more likely to pass. Thus, we illuminate the usage of Dear Colleague letters in Congress, demonstrate how members use interest groups in the legislative process, and shed new light on the varying impact of groups on public policy.     

The high cost of policy termination

Most public policy terminations are promoted as cost saving moves when, in fact, there are often considerable short term costs associated with closing down public programs. Termination studies recognized these costs years ago and several published case studies provide examples, but no previous research has focused exclusively on the cost question. This research surveys the literature of policy termination and draws out relevant conceptualizations and examples in order to develop a better understanding of termination costs. The data from existing studies is supplemented by a thorough examination of a 1981 policy termination---the end of the entitlement of free health care for merchant seamen and the closure of eight Public Health Service (PHs) hospitals. The data verifies the expectation that the termination process involves considerable costs to prevent damage to communities, constituents, and staff.