Campaign Update
Friday, September 14, 2007

Inside This Issue:

A) Budget Cuts = Step Backwards for Children's Health Insurance

After nearly two months of a budget stalemate, the Legislature finally passed and the Governor signed the 2007-2008 California State Budget on August 24th. As part of the agreement to secure sufficient Republican votes, the final budget eliminated a total of $66.7 million that would have provided hundreds of thousands of eligible but uninsured children with health insurance.

Senate Bill 437, enacted last year,simplified the application and enrollment process forchildren 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 and ultimately not be able to enroll in needed health coverage.

An additional $34.6 million in county outreach grants was also cut leaving existing enrollment efforts scrambling to shut down for lack of funds. These grants supported local enrollment efforts and technology investments to reach tens of thousands of children currently eligible for, but not enrolled in, Medi-Cal and Healthy Families.

In an effort to finalize the budget to move forward with health reform to extend coverage to all Californians, the Legislature and Governor took a huge step backward in enacting a budget that will result in fewer children receiving health insurance--a sobering disappointment.

B) AB 1 Approved but Held

In the final days of the Legislative session, AB 1 (Laird/Dymally), legislation sponsored by the 100% Campaign and PICO California to secure health insurance for all California children, successfully moved through the Legislature. However, the bill was not sent to the Governor's desk for approval. Instead, at the request of the authors and Governor, the bill was held in the Legislature pending potential introduction in Special Session.

• Click here for AB 1 vote tally on Senate Floor.

• Click here for AB 1 vote tally on Assembly Floor.

SB 32 (Steinberg), an identical bill to AB 1, was also held in the Legislature. We are hopeful that a version of AB 1/SB 32 will be introduced into Special Session so that the Governor and Legislative Leaders can continue to work on securing the policy and financing to cover all children starting in 2008 as part of the major Health Care Reform legislation they are committed to taking up.
We will continue to work diligently on ensuring that this year's policymakers enact and fund coverage for all children starting in 2008. See Special Session item D below on ways you can help!

C) AB 8 Sent to Governor, Veto looms

Assembly Bill 8, Speaker Nuñez' and Senator Perata's Health Care Reform proposal, which would provide health coverage to an estimated 3.4 million Californians, was approved by the Legislature and has made its way to the Governor's desk. The Governor announced his intention to veto AB 8, while simultaneously praising Speaker Nunez for his work and dedication to health care reform and calling for a Special Session (see below). The Legislative leadership and the Governor have stated their intent to work together throughout Special Session to produce health reform legislation that includes components of both the Governor's and the Speaker's proposals.

• Click here for vote tally on the Assembly Floor.

• Click here for vote tally on the Senate Floor.

D) Governor Schwarzenegger Announces Special Session to Address Health Care Reform!

Tuesday, September 11th marked the end of the regular legislative session.

Governor Schwarzenegger officially called a Special Session of the Legislature to order at 5:30 p.m. on Sept 11th and the session is technically "ongoing" from that point. Currently, spot bills for the Special Session have been introduced, but no hearings have been scheduled to date. As mentioned in the Governor's initial announcement on Tuesday, the subjects for Special Session are water and health care reform. Legislators are targeting water first as they facethe September 27thdeadline for legislators to place measures on theFebruary 2008 ballot. No further details have been released.

We're working very hard to ensure the Special Session results in enactment and funding for coverage for all children beginning in 2008. While we continue to support comprehensive health care reform that would bring health coverage to all Californians, the reality that we currently face is that children risk losing existing coverage if a comprehensive statewide policy including immediate financing is not finalized right away. Without action, thousands of California children that are currently covered will begin to lose that coverage in 2008.

You can help by contacting your legislator and letting them know that their work is not done! Let them know that you expect coverage for all of California's children and the immediate and long term financing to make it happen in the Special Session!

• Click here to find your legislator.

• Click here for the latest Fact Sheet on AB1 and SB 32 which outlines the policies for children's coverage that should be introduced in Special Session.

With the September 30th SCHIP expiration deadline fast approaching, the House and the Senate have not yet reached agreement on a compromise SCHIP plan. The major difference between the House and Senate SCHIP bills are 1) the level of funding for children's health and 2) whether to include Medicare provisions as the House bill does. The bi-partisan Senate bill proposes a $35 billion increase to cover an additional 4 million uninsured children while the House bill proposes an additional $50 billion to cover 5 million more uninsured children. Senate Republicans have blocked the Senate from naming conferees on the insistence that any compromise not exceed the Senate funding amount and not include Medicare provisions. There is currently some movement on separating the Medicare provisions from the SCHIP bill.

Congress intends to send a package to the President's desk by the last week in September. If an agreement is not made in this time frame or the President vetoes the compromise legislation, Congress will need to pass a continuing resolution to continue SCHIP funding so children do not lose their SCHIP health insurance. In addition to threatening to veto both the House and Senate versions of SCHIP bills, President Bush's Administration has also issued a directive to states restricting their ability to provide SCHIP to uninsured children with incomes above 250% of poverty unless states meet near impossible standards. This directive has galvanized many: governors, including Governor Schwarzenegger, 44 Senators and editorial boards from across the country are calling on the President to withdraw this directive. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has since denied New York's proposal to extend SCHIP to uninsured children up to 400% of poverty. Clearly, California's intent to extend Healthy Families to those up to 300% of poverty is at risk under this directive. A bipartisan group of four senators just introduced legislation (S. 2049) to prevent the CMS from implementing a new policy designed to prevent states from enrolling children with higher family incomes in SCHIP. In addition, members in both houses indicated they would propose preventing CMS from implementing the directive both in the SCHIP legislation and in any HHS or SCHIP continuing resolution. In fact, New Jersey Governor, John Corzine, recently stated in a letter to CMS and President Bush that if the administration attempts to block New Jersey from enrolling children up to 350% FPL into SCHIP, New Jersey will file suit.

TAKE ACTION: Time is Running Out!

We all have been working hard to deliver our message: We need Congress to pass and the President to sign a strong SCHIP bill now! Every dollar less in the package means that many fewer uninsured children will not have health insurance. Now is the critical time to finish the job. Here are some important things you can do to make a difference:

• Meet with your member of Congress, particularly if you have a Republican representative, urging them to support the strongest SCHIP bill possible --$50 billion—and to do so before the end of September. Click here to find your Congress member.

• Partner with other key members of your community including businesses, teachers, health plans to send a message to the President to sign Congress' compromise proposal.

• Ask your local paper's editorial board to write in support of a timely and strong SCHIP bill and write letters to the editor yourself supporting SCHIP.

• Spread the word and ask others to weigh in, including your state legislator or local official. Every voice counts!

Thank you for your continued support and efforts to ensure all California children obtain access to affordable, comprehensive health coverage! Please contact Krystal Moreno Lee at klee@childrennow.org or 916-443-1680 if you have any questions.

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