VIRTUALLY ALL PARENTS hope that they can ensure the health and happiness of their children. For many, this vision is what keeps them going from day to day. However, when health problems arise, these aspirations can quickly be put on hold.

As a second-year medical student and a native of Pawtucket, I have spoken with children and families in the Rhode Island community who tell me stories about their struggles with illness. Some of the most vivid accounts I have heard are related to asthma. I recall meeting one child, Daniel, from the Providence area, who was diagnosed with asthma as an infant. Throughout his childhood, he was in and out of the emergency room with attacks, and was once admitted to the hospital. Because of his uncontrolled asthma, Daniel was often absent from school and had difficulty in class. Daniel’s mother, having to tend to her son’s health problems, was forced to take time out of work and was afraid of losing her job.

Up to this point, the story of Daniel and his mother is a common example of the downward cycle that arises when families cannot acquire preventive medical care. Cases like Daniel’s have been relatively uncommon in Rhode Island because of a state childhood-insurance program known as RIte Care. However, recent attempts to cut this program mean that these preventive-care measures will be made unavailable to those who need it most.

Governor Carcieri’s proposal would eliminate coverage for families starting at 185 percent of the poverty line ($39,220 for a family of four). In doing so, it assumes that such families earn enough to afford their own health insurance. However, a recent report by the Poverty Institute found that a two-parent household needs to earn at least $60,000 to meet expenses without help from government subsidies — a finding that clearly indicates the need for programs such as RIte Care. In addition, the governor’s proposal comes after a 2007 bill that made state health-care coverage unavailable for legal immigrant children until they have lived in the country for five years.

Just one of those years can mean a lifetime in the physical and mental development of a child. Erecting legal barriers for these children to access medical care only serves to handicap a group with the potential to become hardworking citizens.

If we accept this pattern, I, as a future physician of Rhode Island, will continue to see children with experiences such as Daniel. Asthma, though not curable, is a controllable disease. However, denial of RIte Care means denial of proper asthma management — including long-term controller medications, home-based interventions and patient education. Like Daniel, asthmatic children will miss school days, be forced to depend on ER visits for primary care, and face hospitalization because their disease has spiraled out of control. Cuts to RIte Care also mean surrender of preventive medicine for mental illness, disability and other chronic diseases affecting children.

Rhode Island has a sizeable budget deficit. However, cutting RIte Care is not a solution. Without insurance coverage for preventive medicine, any apparent savings will be lost. As a testament to this reality, we see many states aggressively pushing to decrease the number of uninsured. Yet, in Rhode Island, our leaders have decided to go in the wrong direction. Rather than working to improve the health of our state, they are harming low-income families who are already vulnerable to both economic and medical distress.

We all live, work, and go to school together. As more residents gather in the State House to protest cuts to basic services such as RIte Care, it is clear that the people of Rhode Island want their leaders to make decisions that improve the state’s long-term viability. Instead of cutting one public-service program to give to another, it is crucial for lawmakers to find other ways to address the budget deficit. Such solutions should ultimately involve improving the cost-efficiency of our state government — whether by restructuring the tax code or by taking steps to repair its fragmented bureaucracy.

Granted, these budget decisions will not be simple. But so long as we believe that access to health care is expendable, we will continue to suffer the consequences of an unhealthy community. It is in the best interest of our state to take aggressive steps to ensure that we are all healthy. At the very least, we owe it to kids like Daniel, whose future depends on the preservation of cost-effective programs such as RIte Care.

Juan Vasquez is a second-year medical student at the Brown Medical School. This op-ed was co-authored by Margret Chang, Sharon David and Andrea Dean, who are also second-year medical students at the Brown Medical School.