California Children at Risk of Losing Health Insurance Coverage
Thousands of California children could lose health insurance coverage in the coming months as a result of changes in Medi-Cal rules and decreased funding for local efforts that have provided coverage to children, the Los Angeles Times reports. Medi-Cal is California’s Medicaid program.
State lawmakers will require parents of children enrolled in Medi-Cal to renew their enrollment every six months.
The administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) projects that the requirement will contribute to a drop in Medi-Cal enrollment over the next two years of about 196,000 children.
State lawmakers also have increased monthly premiums for Healthy Families, California’s version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, by $2 to $3 per child.
As a result, the state estimates that the parents of 19,000 children no longer will receive coverage through the program by July 2009.
The changes to Medi-Cal and Healthy Families were approved as part of a larger effort to address the state budget deficit.
Local Efforts.
Beyond changes to Medi-Cal and Healthy Families rules, children also could lose coverage because of funding challenges faced by local initiatives operating in 30 counties. The efforts target children who are ineligible for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families because of income or citizenship requirements.
The initiatives are funded largely by private philanthropies and local First 5 commissions, which disburse funds from a state tobacco tax for early childhood health care and education efforts.
Wendy Lazarus, co-president of the advocacy group Children’s Partnership, estimates that enrollment in the efforts has dropped by 8,000 over the past two years.
Click here for your free California health insurance quote now!
Related posts:
- California Legislature Drops Some Health Cuts From Budget Early this morning, the California Legislature approved a budget proposal for fiscal year 2008-2009 that avoided some cuts to health care and other programs, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Democrats widely opposed the proposed cuts (Zapler, San Jose Mercury News, 9/16)....
- 1.3 million California kids lack dental health insurance 1.3 million California kids lack dental health insurance...
- 1.3 million Cal kids lack health insurance The nation has 8.6 million children who lack public or private health insurance and 1.3 million of them are in California, Families USA, a Washington-based advocate for expanded health access, says in a report based on new census data. California, the nation’s most populous state, is just behind Texas in the numbered of medically uninsured [...]...
- Sudden health-care changes unlikely in California Given all Barack Obama said about change during the presidential race, he might be expected to quickly revamp America’s health-care system, which virtually everyone calls a mess. Local people who have pushed for health-care reform say, however, they don’t expect major changes in a hurry. But they do foresee the new president attending to the [...]...
- Grim Health Picture For California’s Low-income Kids No improvement in health insurance coverage: The proportion of children ages 0-5 in California who lacked health insurance for all or part of the previous year - one in ten children - remained unchanged between 2001 and 2005....