Rebecca Bell, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at the Larner College of Medicine and a pediatric critical care physician at the 91Ƶ Children’s Hospital, was featured on VTDigger’s podcast Vermont Conversation with David Goodman discussing the chaos at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the uneven future of vaccine access.
Bell warned that Medicaid cuts—which will result in some 45,000 Vermonters losing health insurance—will fall hardest on children, who make up one-third of the program’s enrollees in the state. “It pains me to say, I don’t know that you want to trust the CDC,” she said, noting that she was speaking in her personal capacity, not on behalf of any of the organizations with which she is affiliated.
She encouraged families to look to other sources for accurate information, especially , which represents 67,000 pediatricians. She also recommended the and the . “Then I ask families to talk to their own child’s doctor, because that’s going to be a great source as well,” she said.
Bell credited Vermont with being proactive “about how we can keep Vermonters safe,” but added that she feels “really sad” for the future of child health in the United States. “I think that we’re going to see a lot of disparities, not just with access to vaccination but access to health care in general, with the big Medicaid cuts that are coming up as well.”
Bell emphasized, “Accessible, affordable health care is what kids need to succeed and for families to succeed, and so we are deeply concerned about the future of pediatric health care because our foundation is Medicaid. This is how we care for kids. It’s what supports our clinics.”