Thousands of California children are in danger of losing health insurance

By Jordan Rau
Los Angeles Times
August 24, 2008
California’s promising strides toward extending medical coverage to all its children, a longtime goal of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and one advocates believed was in reach by decade’s end, has stalled — and thousands of kids are in danger of losing insurance.
…legislative budget negotiators this year have decided to increase premiums for the state’s Healthy Families program (SCHIP), which pays for medical care for more than 850,000 children of low-income workers who are above the federal poverty line. The state estimates that the parents of 19,000 children will end up dropping out of the program by July…
Lawmakers also have decided to require the parents of 3.4 million Californians who are below the federal poverty line to renew their Medi-Cal health coverage every six months. The Schwarzenegger administration expects that rule will pare Medi-Cal rolls by about 196,000 children over the next two years.
The changes to subsidized or free health programs come as private health initiatives that pay for the care of children are running out of money, causing them to limit the number they cover. These privately run initiatives exist in 30 counties, arranging medical care for children who are not legal residents or whose families earn slightly more than the threshold for public programs. Enrollment in the initiatives has dropped by 8,000 in the last two years, to 80,000, according to Wendy Lazarus, co-president of the Children’s Partnership, a nonprofit advocacy group.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kidshealth24-2008aug24,0,4590020,full.story

The good news in yesterday’s Census Bureau release was that increased enrollment in government health programs more than offset the decline in private insurance coverage, especially for children. Nationally, there were 512,000 fewer uninsured children in 2007 than there were in 2006, primarily because of increased Medicaid and SCHIP enrollment.
Only one year later, over 200,000 children in California alone are projected to lose their coverage.
Think about that.
If SCHIP and Medicaid expansion represent the successes of incrementalism, then how do you define failure?
Try this one. Failure is the perpetuation of policies that do not ensure that everyone is automatically included, for life, in a program that enables affordable access to all necessary health care.
Success would be easy – merely adopt a single payer national health program. So why are we so fixated on perpetuating failure?

By Jordan Rau
Los Angeles Times
August 24, 2008

California’s promising strides toward extending medical coverage to all its children, a longtime goal of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and one advocates believed was in reach by decade’s end, has stalled — and thousands of kids are in danger of losing insurance.

…legislative budget negotiators this year have decided to increase premiums for the state’s Healthy Families program (SCHIP), which pays for medical care for more than 850,000 children of low-income workers who are above the federal poverty line. The state estimates that the parents of 19,000 children will end up dropping out of the program by July…

Lawmakers also have decided to require the parents of 3.4 million Californians who are below the federal poverty line to renew their Medi-Cal health coverage every six months. The Schwarzenegger administration expects that rule will pare Medi-Cal rolls by about 196,000 children over the next two years.

The changes to subsidized or free health programs come as private health initiatives that pay for the care of children are running out of money, causing them to limit the number they cover. These privately run initiatives exist in 30 counties, arranging medical care for children who are not legal residents or whose families earn slightly more than the threshold for public programs. Enrollment in the initiatives has dropped by 8,000 in the last two years, to 80,000, according to Wendy Lazarus, co-president of the Children’s Partnership, a nonprofit advocacy group.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kidshealth24-2008aug24,0,4590020,full.story

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

The good news in yesterday’s Census Bureau release was that increased enrollment in government health programs more than offset the decline in private insurance coverage, especially for children. Nationally, there were 512,000 fewer uninsured children in 2007 than there were in 2006, primarily because of increased Medicaid and SCHIP enrollment.

Only one year later, over 200,000 children in California alone are projected to lose their coverage.

Think about that.

If SCHIP and Medicaid expansion represent the successes of incrementalism, then how do you define failure?

Try this one. Failure is the perpetuation of policies that do not ensure that everyone is automatically included, for life, in a program that enables affordable access to all necessary health care.

Success would be easy – merely adopt a single payer national health program. So why are we so fixated on perpetuating failure?