|
HOME > ABOUT > PRESS > LOW INCOME CARE UNCERTAIN
Article published - December 9, 2007
Credit: MARIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL
Low-income children's health-care funding faces uncertain future
By
Richard Halstead
Carlos and Adriana Pech of San Rafael can't afford health insurance for themselves, but a program known as SCHIP provides coverage to daughters Leslie, 8, and Emily, 3.
 |
| Leslie Pech, 8, of San Rafael gets an examination from medical assistant Deanna Hasbun at the Marin Community Clinic in Greenbrae. The SCHIP program provides coverage for Leslie and her sister, but Congress and President Bush are in a stalemate over funding. (IJ photo/Alan Dep) |
Adriana Pech took Leslie to the Marin Community Clinic last week when she displayed flu symptoms. Pech said her daughters have been in the program three years.
"We couldn't pay for the insurance ourselves," said Pech, who works as a cook's assistant in a local restaurant. Her husband is a clerk at Circuit City.
The Pechs' girls are among 2,800 low-income Marin kids who could lose their health insurance if Congress and President Bush fail to reach a compromise on funding for the SCHIP program.
Congress wants to expand funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program over the next five years by $35 billion to $50 billion. President Bush, however, has proposed an additional $5 billion over five years - an amount that, due to growing medical costs, would fail to pay for all of the children currently enrolled in the program.
Passed in 1997 by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, SCHIP was created to cover children whose parents earned too much to qualify for Medicaid - the federal health-care program for the poor.
In California, SCHIP money is mixed with state money to fund the state's Healthy Families program, which covers 835,000 children. To qualify for Healthy Families, a family of four can earn no more than $51,625 per year - 250 percent of the federal poverty rate of $20,650 per year. In Marin, 2,800 children are enrolled in the Healthy Families program.
Bobbe Rockoff, a policy strategist for Marin County's Department of Health and Human Services, said there are an estimated 15,000 children in Marin living in families with incomes of less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four that level is $61,950 a year.
Rockoff said probably all these families need help to afford health insurance for their children. But only Kaiser Permanente offers low-cost health coverage for uninsured kids in families above 250 percent of the poverty rate in Marin, she said. Kaiser covers about 450 low-income Marin children. There are about 2,550 children in families with incomes of less than 300 percent of the rate who are receiving no help.
"So the need is not completely met with everything in place," Rockoff said.
Authorization for SCHIP expired on Sept. 30 and has twice been extended by continuing resolutions passed by Congress to keep the federal government operating. But the second extension isdue to expire on Dec. 14, and no one is sure what will happen next, said Kristen Golden Testa, California program director for The Children's Partnership, which has offices in California and Washington, D.C.
The state's Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board was scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to freeze enrollment in the Healthy Families program and send letters to 56,600 families alerting them that their kids would lose their coverage on Dec. 31. At the last minute, however, the board decided to delay the vote in hopes that Congress will resolve SCHIP funding needs before its holiday recess.
Last week, Congress sent a bill to President Bush that would boost the size of the program by $35 billion over the next five years and allow another 4 million children to be added to the rolls. The bill is similar to one vetoed by Bush in October.
This version, however, would prohibit kids in families earning more than 300 percent of the poverty level from participating. Currently, states are free to set their own income guidelines. The bill also contains new language designed to ensure that undocumented immigrants would be excluded from the program, Testa said.
Bush has indicated he will veto the legislation, Testa said. She said Democrats in the House of Representatives are 10 to 12 votes short to override a presidential veto. Only one of California's 19 Republican representatives - Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs - has supported the bill.
|
