It fills the bill when kids are ill.

• Position: Pediatric day care

It fills the bill when kids are ill

A Cary pediatrician is betting a million bucks that parents will pay triple the going rate to have professionals tend their sick children.

That's how much Dr. James Poole says he has already spent on Kids Care and Health Center, an operation in Cary with a full-time nursing staff, on-call pediatricians and five isolation rooms to make sure children don't catch something else while they're recuperating. Poole hopes users will pay the $39-a-day tab -- compared with about $13 a day for regular day care -- rather than miss a day's work.

But Raleigh-based day-care consultant Stephanie Fanjul thinks the cost is the center's prime flaw. "There are women who barely make $39 a day, so who are we kidding?" she asks.

What to do with the sick children of working parents is, of course, a national concern. According to The Conference Board, a New York City-based think tank, a typical parent will miss 10 days of work a...