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 California
is successfully enrolling uninsured children in its Medi-Cal
and Healthy Families programs (the state's Medicaid
and State Children's Health Insurance Program--SCHIP).
However, the work does not end there: instead, children
must stay covered so that the insurance is there when
they need it--for the unexpected baseball injury or for
regular check ups and immunizations. Children's health
coverage should be ongoing, similar to school attendance:
it is not enough to bring a child to the first day of
school because education involves a continuum of learning.
As with other states, thousands of California's children
are falling off Medi-Cal and Healthy Families every month.
Our greatest concern is for those children who unnecessarily
lose coverage even though they remain eligible.
Our new report on continuing children's coverage, Children
Falling Through the Health Insurance Cracks:
- outlines what families must do to keep Healthy Families
and Medi-Cal;
- provides new data on how many children are "retaining"
Healthy Families/Medi-Cal coverage and reasons why
children are losing coverage;
- identifies critical junctures where children are
at risk of losing coverage;
- recommends promising strategies that California's
programs should implement with highlights from other
states' insurance programs;
- suggests ideas for further research and demonstration
pilot projects.
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