According to a Washington Times news account by Cheryl Wetzstein in Washington Times (1/12/2010), the Obama healthcare bill will contain $1 billion over five years for a new federal welfare program.  It is a maternal home-visit service in which a volunteering mother with a new baby will receive, for up to two years, “nurse visits once or twice a month to help the younger mother cope with the daily demands of a growing child.”  Wetzstein adds, “This maternal home-visit service is on its way to becoming a massive federal program….”

President Obama touted the “Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP),” during the campaign.  NFP was devised by in the late 1970s by psychologist David Olds, now a professor at the University of Colorado, Denver.  True to his word, Obama is pushing this program now.

In an accompanying analysis piece, Wetzstein’s focuses her only fire on the lack of attention paid to fathers by the program.  Howerver, there are other concerns.  The first that struck me was this: so what happens when the poor, at-risk, poorly educated mother doesn’t do what the friendly nurse instructs?  What if she doesn’t stop smoking, for example?  How close is the link between the visiting nurses and social services enforcement division in your local community?  These nurses have to be filing reports on their student moms and evaluating them.  Are there jurisdictions in which NFP visits have led to mother’s losing custodial rights over their children?

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