San Jose Mercury News
September 14, 2004

Kids' stories illustrate why county's plan is a godsend
By Sue Hutchison
Mercury News

You've been hearing about these kids for months, even if you don't know who they are. They've made headlines and become an emblem of our broken health care system.

Abraham Meza was one of them. From the time he was born five years ago, he had terrible stomachaches and fevers but he had no health insurance. His mother, Griselda, tried unsuccessfully to cure him with homemade remedies from herbs she bought at Mexican stores in her San Jose neighborhood.

Long Nguyen was one of them, too. Long is 11 and was in a car accident a while ago. He was taken to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center to have his neck injury treated. If the accident had happened only a year or so earlier, when he had no medical coverage, the hospital would have had to pick up the tab.

Carlos Ayala is one of them. His mother, Margarita, works at a San Jose bakery, and she has only emergency Medi-Cal coverage for him. He is 7 years old and has never seen a pediatrician.

Program helps thousands

Carlos is on an eight-month waiting list for Healthy Kids, Santa Clara County's medical plan that now covers Abraham and Long. Since the county began its Children's Health Initiative in 2001, Healthy Kids has covered more than 24,000 children who aren't eligible for state or federal insurance plans because they are undocumented immigrants or their parents earn too much to qualify for poverty programs.

The county's Family Health Plan, which administers Healthy Kids, also has enrolled 60,000 children in Medi-Cal and the state's Healthy Families programs by reaching out to parents who had no idea their children were eligible for coverage. It's brought millions more dollars in public funding into the county.

The rest of the country is reeling from an avalanche of bad news about health care, including newly released census figures showing that 45 million Americans are uninsured. Companies are buckling under health insurance costs, and San Jose Medical Center is the latest of many hospitals to close their doors.

But the county has had the guts and ingenuity to do something about the problem.

Preventive medicine

Kids who were using emergency rooms as though they were pediatricians' offices now have preventive health care, and it's saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital costs. It has also saved futures.

The Children's Health Initiative is an example of what can be accomplished when you stop harping on what you can't do and focus on what you can. It's no surprise that companies are fighting Proposition 72, the referendum on a law passed last year that would require many more of them to provide medical coverage. Though it's true that rocketing health insurance costs could kill even more jobs in a strained economy, what's stopping employers from getting creative and offering other alternatives?

The county continues to raise the bar by coming up with private backing, in addition to its original funding from tobacco taxes and tobacco lawsuit settlement money. The annual wine-tasting benefit for the Healthy Kids Fund will be held on Sept. 26 in Los Gatos, and every $1,000 raised will pull one more child off the waiting list.

Just ask Abraham Meza's mother if it's worth it. Since Abraham has been seeing a pediatrician through Healthy Kids, his stomachaches are gone. Now the main thing on his mind is getting the next Spider-Man action figure. You know, your basic healthy 5-year-old boy.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

For more information about the Healthy Kids Fund benefit, call (408) 874-1997.