|
Contra Costa Times
September 30, 2005
By Rebecca Rosen Lum
Victor Jacobo's children had never seen a
doctor until his 2-year-old daughter suffered an asthma attack.
He rushed her to an emergency room in a neighboring town.
The 29-year-old Pittsburg father, who mans
his own carpet cleaning business, cannot afford health insurance.
That means no check-ups: visual, medical or dental.
His daughter's visit to the emergency room
cost him $1,800. Jacobo did not know his children qualified
for the state and federal Healthy Families program, which
covers youths ineligible for Medi-Cal.
With as many as 12,000 of Contra Costa County's
underage residents uninsured--as well as 25,000 in Alameda
County and 800,000 statewide-- ealth care advocates are hoping
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign a bill that provides
an ample safety net for children such as Jacobo's.
They are unlikely to get their wish.
California Healthy Kids would substitute
a single, streamlined health care plan for Medi-Cal and Healthy
Families and encompass children in poverty who do not qualify
for either of those plans.
The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Wilma
Chan, D-Oakland, passed 49-29 in the Assembly and 25-12 in
the Senate. Schwarzenegger has until Oct. 9 to sign or veto
it.
Schwarzenegger feels this is "not the
right bill at the right time," said Nicole Evans Kasabian,
a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human
Services.
The governor has taken other actions to provide
coverage for the state's young, said Evans Kasabian. He did
not cut Medi-Cal and he increased funding for Healthy Families
by $150 million, adding 125,000 slots to the program.
Chan's bill would qualify children if they
meet criteria for school lunch programs, the California Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children
or the food stamp program. Parents could fill out a single
application for subsidized hot lunches and health care.
The law would be phased in over three years,
beginning in 2006. The cost: $10 million in the first year
and $300 million a year beginning in 2008.
No states have passed universal coverage
for all needy children, said Jody Ruskamp-Hatz, policy specialist
with the National Conference of State Legislatures. Several
have a single office to oversee Medicaid and state programs.
"When we piecemeal legislation, it's
always more expensive, more complicated, and presents more
barriers to families," said Paula Heinz, program manager
for Contra Costa County's Child Health and Disability Prevention
Program. "If we eliminated the (separate) bureaucracies,
we could afford to insure many more children."
Undocumented workers and those whose incomes
are higher than the poverty level but too low to pay for insurance
are not eligible for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families. For many
of them, hospital emergency rooms substitute for preventive
care.
"Most of our congregation--I'd say 90
percent--would not qualify (for either)," said Carolyn
Krantz, a member of the 25-congregation Contra Costa Interfaith
Supporting Community Organization.
The cost of providing unreimbursed emergency
care has driven health care providers out of the field, including
Tenet. The company pulled up stakes in West Contra Costa two
years ago, citing 10,000 emergency room visits a year.
Two recent reports by the Census Bureau show
more families are living in poverty, statewide and across
the nation.
Many who would benefit from the bill are
the children of undocumented workers, but that's not why
the governor cooled to it, Evans Kasabian said. "It actually
had to do with the administrative structure," she said.
Republican leaders say the governor is right
to limit services to non-citizens. "There are two primary
arguments opponents of services to illegal immigrants make,"
said GOP consultant Dan Schnur. "The first is about
cost and the second is about fairness."
|
