|
Valley residents head to Sacramento
to support bill expanding coverage
Modesto Bee
April 14, 2005
By Eric Stern
SACRAMENTO--Gladys Salas, 25, tells
the common immigrant tale of taking her daughter to the hospital
emergency room when she's sick because the family doesn't
have health insurance to pay a doctor.
There was the time when her 5-year-old
daughter had a high fever. And when her 12-year-old nephew
cut himself on glass and needed stitches, the emergency room
bill was $2,000, she said.
"We don't qualify for anything,"
said Salas, a member of St. Jude's Catholic Church of Ceres.
She traveled Wednesday to the capital in a 300-person caravan
with Modesto-area church members to rally for better children's
health coverage.
More than 4,000 people filled the Sacramento
Convention Center to cheer on Democratic legislative leaders
and their $330 million health insurance proposal. It would
allow more families, regardless of immigration status, to
tap into the state's Healthy Kids insurance program for low-income
children.
It also would cut red tape to ease enrollment
and expand income guidelines to three times the poverty level,
about $48,300 for a family of three.
Earlier Wednesday, the proposal, Senate Bill
437, cleared the Senate Health Committee. The measure needs
approval from the full Senate and Assembly, as well as the
governor.
Gov. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has not
taken a position on the bill. But administration officials
assured the crowd that expanding health insurance for children
is a priority.
"Gov. Schwarzenegger supports the goal
that every child in California be insured," Health and
Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe said at the rally.
Speakers' comments were translated into Spanish,
Hmong and Russian.
Schwarzenegger already has proposed an increase
in funding for outreach efforts to get more children signed
up for existing health insurance programs, Belshe said.
The Democratic effort for an expanded Healthy
Kids program is being pushed by children's advocates, health
associations and business groups, who say healthier children
perform better in school and help their parents stay more
focused on work.
"As people of faith, we have to look
at the most vulnerable in our community--our children,"
said Alicia Lozano, a Modesto resident who serves as an executive
board member of Congregations Building Community, which brought
busloads of Stanislaus County residents to the rally.
The county has an estimated 18,000 children
without health coverage--about 11 percent of residents
under 18 years old, according to a university of California
at Los Angeles survey.
Almost 17 percent of children in San Joaquin
County and 19 percent in Merced County are uninsured, the
same survey found.
Nine million of the 10 million children in
California already are covered by private and government insurance
plans. The proposed legislation would cover the remaining
1 million uninsured children and young adults up to age 21.
Funding is an issue
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, and
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, told the rally
crowd that the legislation will get to the governor's desk.
"And this is the year to do it,"
Perata said.
But in the midst of the state's ongoing budget
crisis, finding the money to pay for the program will not
be simple. Bill supporters hope that a combination of increased
federal funds, private contributions, patient deductibles--even
possible tax increases--will cover the costs.
"We're still working on a funding source,"
said Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, D-Oakland, who is shepherding
the bill through the Assembly.
|
