The Children’s Alliance reported last week that 62,000 low-income kids in Washington have lost state-subsidized health insurance in the past two years. The news is alarming, but it’s not surprising.

Officials at the state Department of Social and Health Services question the precise figure, but even by the agency’s accounting, the number is in the tens of thousands. That’s tens of thousands of needy children who, when they encounter the normal sickness and other health issues for which most kids’ parents would seek preventive medical care, will tough it out at home.

The kids in question are those whose parents are striving to overcome poverty. So long as their need is great enough, they qualify for Medicaid to help them out. As soon as they improve their circumstances enough to move closer to self-sufficiency, they lose eligibility. Prior to 2003, the state allowed a transition process, but that was eliminated as part of the Legislature’s response to severe budgetary pressures.

Outgoing Gov. Gary Locke put $17 million in his budget to restore the pre-2003 practices. That’s a proposal that warrants serious consideration by lawmakers when they convene in Olympia next month.

The Children’s Alliance has gone a step further, however, urging the governor to implement the change by executive order — now, before he leaves office.

The commitment to children’s well-being is admirable, but the requested executive order would be unwise. The state budget is no rosier now than it was two years ago. A revenue shortfall of $1.6 billion or more is anticipated. There will be huge battles over limited available resources when the Legislature gets under way and there will be strong resistance to any tax increases that might be suggested for a better health insurance program.

To slip this particular program into place in what would look like an end run by a lame-duck governor would risk political squabbling and pose a distraction.

That doesn’t mean that the case for corrective action isn’t compelling. We are, after all, talking about fragile kids, many of whom live in circumstances where nutrition and shelter are substandard, leaving them especially vulnerable to health problems. Desperate families, lacking health insurance, resort to risky and inefficient strategies when sickness comes up. They can’t afford to go to a doctor, so they wait until a condition is acute, and then go to an emergency room where the highest possible cost is incurred. Hospitals can’t turn them away. That very pattern is one of the factors that have aggravated health care costs in Washington and all other states.

This issue of adequate health-care coverage for needy children deserves serious, determined attention when the Legislature sits down to grapple with its budget challenges, but it needs to be handled in the context of all the fiscal pressures, not in an eleventh-hour executive order.