Campaign Update
Friday, May 18, 2007

Inside This Issue:

The Governor's May Revision of the 2007-08 budget, released on Monday, May 14, proposes a boost of support for children's health coverage. Highlights include:

1. Funding for Healthy Families Program enrollment increase of 73,128 children. This expected increase is due to several simplification policies enacted last year in the 2006-07 budget and in SB 437 (Escutia), a bill sponsored by the 100% Campaign and PICO California. Implementation of these policies will allow families to self-certify their income when they renew their children's Healthy Families coverage, improve linkages for children who transfer from Medi-Cal to Healthy Families, and ease the initial Healthy Families application process.

2. Presumptive Eligibility from Healthy Families to Medi-Cal. The Governor's May Revision also proposes to prevent coverage gaps for children moving from Healthy Families to Medi-Cal through the creation of a Healthy Families to Medi-Cal presumptive eligibility program at renewal—a policy for which Californians for Healthy Kids has repeatedly advocated. When children renew their Healthy Families coverage but appear eligible for Medi-Cal, they would be "presumptively enrolled" in Medi-Cal and continue to receive health insurance coverage while their renewal application is forwarded to Medi-Cal and a final eligibility determination is made. This would replace the current 2-month Healthy Families to Medi-Cal Bridge program.

For more information on the May Revise and details on the above highlights, please visit, www.ebudget.ca.gov.

SB 32 (Steinberg) was heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 14, and AB 1 (Laird/Dymally) was heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on May 16. Senator Steinberg and Assemblyman Laird presented their bills in the respective committees, with testimony in support provided by Californians for Healthy Kids and other advocates. Both of these bills were placed on the suspense file, along with other bills with a fiscal impact of over $150,000 to the state's general fund, for the committee to review and prioritize at a later date.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata (D-Oakland) on Tuesday released estimates of how much their respective health care reform bills, AB 8 and SB 48, would cost, how many uninsured people would be covered, and how the reforms would be paid for.

Visit www.calhealthreform.org for more information about health reform efforts in California, including the new estimates of these bills.

Please stay tuned for our next update on next steps for ensuring health insurance
for all children in 2007!

The 100% Campaign, a collaborative effort of The Children's Partnership, Children Now, and Children's Defense Fund, was created to ensure that all of California's children obtain the health insurance they need to grow up strong and healthy.
www.100percentcampaign.org

The PICO California Project is the united effort of 20 California congregation-community organizations affiliated with the PICO National Network. Collectively, we represent 350 congregations and 400,000 families statewide and are actively organizing in over 70 cities in Northern and Southern California.
www.picocalifornia.org