The House has proposed funding some individual government agencies and programs as a stopgap measure. The American Academy of Pediatrics is asking Congress to reopen the full government.
As a pediatrician, if I see a kid coming in with a sore throat and a headache, I don't treat the headache today and say come back in a month for the sore throat. We need a holistic approach because there are so many programs that affect children.
There is no one program that is "more essential" than the other. There are so many programs that help children, and they all need to be working together to get the job done.
Dan Levy
The writer is past president of the Maryland chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.