San Jose Mercury News
January 13, 2002

In a wealthy, innovative area like this,
every child deserves health coverage
By Joe Natoli

Every child in Santa Clara County deserves adequate health care. Along with high-quality parenting, there's nothing more central to a child's ability to learn and become a good citizen. Sadly, that's not the case now. But it's within our reach. And if it can't be done here, in this valley of wealth and innovation, where and when can it be done?

Mercury News reporter Michelle Guido recently told the story of an ambitious and pioneering effort to make a difference in the lives of thousands of children in our community. The Children's Health Initiative began a year ago with the goal of providing health insurance to the 70,000 children in Santa Clara County who lacked coverage. Already, about 25,000 children have been signed up. It could be a potential model for all of America.

A grass-roots program within Sun Microsystems, started by Business Development Manager Stanley Huang, raised $3,000 new dollars to support the program in just the first week. Those dollars will increase through the Sun Foundation employee matching program. Officials estimate that 45,000 children in Santa Clara County, one of the most affluent communities in the country, still lack health insurance. (An estimated 10.5 million children in this, the world's richest country, are in the same circumstances.)

Not surprisingly, the uninsured are less healthy than the general population and are more likely to be hospitalized for "avoidable hospital conditions.'' They are also more likely to seek expensive emergency room care when they do get sick, and that burden often falls on taxpayers.

There are two groups of families that will benefit from the Children's Health Initiative and the Healthy Kids plan:

• Nearly two-thirds of kids in Santa Clara County who lack insurance already qualify for existing, government-funded insurance plans. But for a variety of reasons, families are not aware of that insurance, or they are unwilling to sign up.
  
• The remaining third of our kids lack insurance because they are undocumented immigrants or have parents who earn too much money to qualify for an existing program.

The Children's Health Initiative aims to change all that by reaching those families and signing the kids up for an existing program or the new Healthy Kids plan. Health care would be provided by the Santa Clara Family Health Plan, a not-for-profit public agency that also provides health care for county employees.

"We're educating people about why this is important and taking it down to the individual level,'' said Craig Walsh, former senior marketing manager for the San Francisco 49ers, who now heads the fundraising effort for the initiative. "We feel this is something that all the people in Santa Clara County need to help us with because ultimately, this program helps all people in Santa Clara County.''

It costs about $1,000 to sponsor a child for a year in Healthy Kids. That pays for medical, dental and vision care. More money is needed for outreach and to insure others.

This is one of the wisest investments our community, any of us, could make. That's why I am joining Stanley Huang and his colleagues at Sun in sponsoring a child. I hope you will consider doing the same. For more information or to make a contribution call (888) 244-5222 or visit the Healthy Kids Website at www.healthykidsfund.org.

Joe Natoli is president and publisher of the San Jose Mercury News.
Contact him at jnatoli@sjmercury.com or (408) 920-5575.

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