Campaign Update
Friday, August 24, 2007

California State Budget Takes a Step Backwards for Children's Health

The 100% Campaign and PICO California released the following statement on the cuts to children's health care in the final state budget:

"Today, the final 2007-08 state budget brokered by the legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger was signed into law. The final budget eliminates a total of $66.7 million that would have helped more than one hundred thousand children eligible for Medi-Cal and Healthy Families enroll in these health insurance programs.

Senate Bill 437, passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the Governor last year, would have simplified the application and enrollment process for children applying for the Medi-Cal and Healthy Families programs.

With the Governor's line-item veto of $32.1 million to implement SB 437, an estimated 94,000 eligible children will continue to face great difficulty enrolling in needed health coverage. We now must wait to see if these simplifications will be funded in next year's budget.

An additional $34.6 million in county outreach grants was also cut from the final budget. This money would have funded local efforts to reach tens of thousands of children currently eligible for, but not enrolled in, Medi-Cal and Healthy Families.

The decision to eliminate funding for these efforts directly contradicts the Governor's and Legislature's stated goal of insuring all California children. As our elected officials move forward on health reform this summer, today's line item vetoes are an unfortunate step backwards from the shared goal of covering all children in our state."

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