House OK’s Home Visitation as Part of Health Care Overhaul

The health care bill that the U.S. House of Representatives passed this Saturday includes a program that early childhood advocates should feel good about: It includes funding for voluntary home visitation programs. The bill authorizes a five-year, $750 million grant program to help states develop in-home services to help pregnant women and mothers of very young children.

We provided details on this legislation when the health-care bill started to take shape in the House. To learn more, see our July 29th post, “Fate of Home Visitation Program is Tied to Health Reform Bill.”

As the Senate starts to debate its own bill, we’ll be watching to see if home visitation remains part of the picture. It looks promising. The version passed by the Senate Finance Committee includes several differences — for example, it doubles the funding to $1.5 billion over five years — but for the most part embraces the same ideas. We’ve noted recently that research questions remain on how to create the most effective programs, but the approach in general has attracted bi-partisan support. The granddaddy of home visitation programs, the Nurse-Family Partnership, has produced sound evidence of reducing child abuse and neglect, improving children’s health and safety, helping parents to be more responsive to their children and reducing harsh parenting tactics. And other programs, like Early Head Start and the Healthy Families program in Alaska, have been linked to improved cognitive outcomes for young children.