San Jose Mercury News
Serving Northern California Since 1851
April 12, 1999

Healthy families program is feeling better
Editorial
The opinion of the Mercury News

It's been slow -- agonizingly slow -- but efforts to sign up poor California children for free health insurance are bearing fruit.

Since July, the number of children in the Healthy Families program has steadily increased from month to month. And now that the state has simplified the application booklet (from a daunting 28-page form to a shorter and easier four-page version), one barrier to participation has been eliminated.

Still, serious commitment at the local level is clearly what it takes to make a dent in California's huge population of children who are uninsured because they don't qualify for Medi-Cal, but whose parents don't get insurance from their employers and can't afford to buy it privately.

Originally, California hoped to enroll 200,000 children by July 1999. That goal is not going to be reached, due to the slow start. Still, 96,000 have been signed up as of April 7, out of a total target population estimated at 328,000.

Santa Clara County is making progress in a number of innovative ways, but is far from finishing the job. The county has signed up 2,500 as of March 27, out of a target population of roughly 10,000.

Almost 500 children were enrolled for medical and dental insurance coverage at a special Saturday event in January at San Antonio Elementary School. The school district,Santa Clara Family Health Plan and 15 other organizations arranged for dozens of trained application assistants to help parents sign up their kids for benefits.

Three more school-centered events will be held in May, with help from a grant from the state Department of Health Services. Other school events are in the planning stages, and then the county will work on ways to reach high school students. And other counties are paying attention to what's working here.

Santa Clara County is also going after small businesses, meeting with English-speaking, Spanish-speaking and Vietnamese-speaking business communities. Employers, said Nancy Gere of the Santa Clara Family Health Plan, often would like to offer insurance for workers and their dependents, but can't afford it. The county can provide them with paycheck stuffers and sample memos to give employees.

Other success stories have shown similar commitment. In San Francisco, employees at a health clinic made it a priority to sign up every client who qualified. In Stockton, city officials worked with the Spanish-speaking community on an aggressive campaign.

The fly in the ointment is the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Despite pleas from state health officials, from the Legislature and from both past and present governors, the INS has failed to state definitely, in writing, that the participation in Healthy Families will not jeopardize legal immigrants' status here. Latinos are signing up for the program, but health advocacy groups and state officials agree more would sign up if the INS would get with the program.

The Healthy Families program offers a package of services comparable to state employees' benefits (doctor visits, hospital stays, prescription drugs and dental and vision care) for children of the working poor, up to age 19. It's a good program, and we're happy to applaud efforts like those in Santa Clara County that hook up thousands of youngsters with coverage that will help them grow up healthy.