SFGate.com
June 14, 2004

Santa Clara County's Children's Health Initiative has provided insurance coverage for more than 29,000 youngsters in its first two years, according to a survey released Monday.

Launched more than three years ago to extend health coverage to uninsured children, the initiative spurred large enrollment increases for two major public health programs funded by state and federal governments -- Medi-Cal and Healthy Families.

It also enrolled more than 15,000 children in the county-funded Healthy Kids program, designed to reach children who are either undocumented immigrants or whose families make too much money to qualify for the government-subsidized programs.

The survey found that in 2001 and 2002, there were 62,082 formerly uninsured children enrolled in Medi-Cal and Healthy Families, an estimated 13,500 of which likely would not have been enrolled without the health incentive's outreach. During the same period, 15,638 children were enrolled in the Healthy Kids program.

Joseph Macrum, a spokesman for the Santa Clara Family Health Plan, credited the increases with the initiative's outreach programs at schools and health fairs.

The survey was commissioned by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which financially supports the program, and conducted by Mathematica Policy Research.