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San Luis Obispo Tribune
July 5, 2005
By Nathan Welton
About 3,000 children without health insurance
in San Luis Obispo County will get coverage under a new law.
Signed into law last week, AB 1075 allows
the Santa Barbara Regional Health Authority to offer medical
coverage for the San Luis Obispo Healthy Kids program. That
initiative will provide health, vision and dental insurance
to the county's estimated 3,000 uninsured children, with coverage
expected to begin this month.
"All systems are ready to go," said
Joel Diringer, a board member on the county's Children's
Health Initiative.
AB 1075 was the first bill written by freshman
Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, to become law.
"This bill will increase access to medical
care while lowering the cost associated with uninsured visits
to emergency rooms," Blakeslee said.
Under the local Healthy Kids program, some
children will enroll in insurance for which they're already
eligible, such as MediCal or Healthy Families.
The rest -- either undocumented immigrants
or those whose family income barely exceeds the cutoffs for
other programs -- will buy into a subsidized health insurance
package for about $10 per month.
That package is essentially an insurance product
offered by the Santa Barbara Regional Health Authority. Blakeslee's
bill ensures that it can be offered to families in San Luis
Obispo County.
It will cost $1.2 million a year to care for
the 1,000 children covered by the subsidized plan, or about
$100 per month per child. Donations are critical. The other
2,000 children will be enrolled in the government insurance
plans.
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