I have always believed that Virginia’s Birth Injury Law is a bad idea. The process is cumbersome and many infants who should receive medical assistance are rejected. On top of being a bad law…it has been woefully under-funded. The program is $128.9 million short of cash needed to provide lifetime care for current children and those who are expected to enter the program over the next 10 years.
Now the news out of Richmond is that financial help is on the way but the remedy may be worse than the problem. Documents obtained by The Times-Dispatch newspaper show the plan would erase as much as half the shortage, about $70.3 million, by capping benefit payments to children and through accounting adjustments that lessen cash obligations by some $44 million.
Does limiting the necessary care of accepted infants in order to allow more infants into the program make sense? Not to me!