|
By Kurtis Alexander
Santa Cruz Sentinel
December 8, 2007
SANTA CRUZ -- Health insurance for about 6,500 children in Santa Cruz County hinges on a federal insurance program that lawmakers have failed to renew this year and have little time to do so before the congressional session ends.
That inaction has left local insurance providers and low-income families uncertain about their future, particularly as state administrators look at whether to begin dropping children from federally funded insurance rolls.
Congress has approved temporary funding for the insurance program since its expiration in September, but at levels that would dry up California's budget by June, says a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
"It would be foolish not to worry," said Leslie Conner, program director of Healthy Kids of Santa Cruz County, a local coverage program for low-income children that picks up where federal funding leaves off.
"We're just hoping saner heads prevail," Conner said.
At issue is the deadlock in Washington over how much money to allocate for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, also known at SCHIP, which funds the bulk of the state Healthy Families insurance program that serves low-income children.
President Bush vetoed a funding bill for SCHIP in October, saying increases for the program are too costly and are misguided attempts to socialize health care. Most in Congress, though, agree a $35 billion expansion is necessary to make sure children are insured amid growing demand for insurance and rising health care costs. The Democratic-led Congress is trying to muster enough votes to override another veto.
In Santa Cruz County, about 5,300 children enrolled in Healthy Families and another 1,000 enrolled in Medi-Cal, a joint federal and state benefits program, owe their insurance to SCHIP, according to the 2005 California Health Interview Survey.
No plans are in place to drop coverage for any of these children. But the state's Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, which manages Healthy Families, is expected to decide at its board meeting next month whether to send notice to parents of up to 600,000 kids, including an unknown number of households in Santa Cruz County, letting them know coverage could lapse next year.
"It would likely be a place we'd have to go to at some point barring a magic solution," said Lesley Cummings, executive director of the state board. "But our thoughts and our energies and focus is on getting action in Congress in December."
The prospect of losing federal funding for health coverage is a painful one for Santa Cruz resident Karen Mallory.
Mallory has relied on coverage from Healthy Families during the past two years to insure her daughter, now 17.
"Initially, I paid for her insurance and it was over $300 a month," said Mallory, who works as a community coordinator for a nonprofit in Live Oak. "I have a good job, but I just couldn't afford that."
SCHIP was passed in 1997, intended to provide insurance for families like Mallory's who don't qualify for Medi-Cal but can't afford private coverage.
Health officials in Santa Cruz County say SCHIP funds have been fundamental in the push to make sure children of working families are insured.
"The progress our local outreach coalition has made would be lost without SCHIP," Conner said. "We're going backwards. It's a big deal."
The effort to provide coverage for the uninsured has helped bring the level of insured children in Santa Cruz County to 98 percent, according to Conner, one of the highest rates in the state.
Back in Washington, an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that if SCHIP is not reauthorized by next week, she would try to push through another, and perhaps larger, extension of funding through next fall. The current extension ends Dec. 14.
If the extension, however, is on par with previous extensions, California would still fall $265 million short of what is needed to cover enrollment projections through September, according to the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board.
|
