Senator Feinstein Introduces Bill to Expand Childrens’ Health Insurance Program to Cover Parents
July 28, 2000

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced legislation last night that would expand a federally-funded children’s health care program children to cover the nearly 3 million low-income parents of these children nationwide, including over 350,000 in California.

Senator Feinstein’s bill would expand the State-Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), known as Healthy Families in California, a 1997 federal-state effort to provide affordable health care to children. In California, the federal government matches state contributions to insure children from families whose incomes are no more than $42,625 per year, or about 250 percent of the poverty line in California.

“Healthy Families provides much needed health care coverage to California’s most vulnerable population – low-income, uninsured children of working families,” Senator Feinstein said. “This bill is important because not only will it help us enroll the children eligible for the program, it will help their low-income parents get access to affordable health care. The bottom line is that the lack of affordable health care is one of the largest hurdles that prevent working families from reaching financial self-sufficiency.”

Today, many states, including California, are not using their full allocations allowed under current federal law because of the many hurdles in enrolling children. In California, the state stands to lose $588 million in Fiscal Year 1998 funding because of these difficulties.

The Healthy Families Program provides low cost health, dental, and vision coverage to uninsured children in families with incomes below $41,600 per year for a family of four. The federally funded program contracts with many of California’s major health plans, and important preventive services such as immunizations are offered at no cost. To date, only 305,000 of the 600,000 eligible children are enrolled for the program in California.

Today, California’s health care is in state of crisis, especially for young children. According to UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research, 1.85 million or 19 percent of our children are without health insurance, compared to 15 percent nationally. In California, there are 7.3 million uninsured adults or 23.5 percent of the population.

“This bill is important for several reasons. Many state officials say that by covering parents of uninsured children we can actually cover more children. More than 75% of uninsured children live with parents who are uninsured. If an entire family is enrolled in a plan and seeing the same group of doctors – in other words, if the care is convenient for the whole family – all the members of the family are more likely to be insured and to stay healthy.”

Some of the benefits of the program include a choice of health plans, well-baby exams, doctor visits for ear infections, and emergency room visits. The eligibility requirements for Californians are listed below:

• Covers children under age 19;
• For a family of four, household income must be at or below $41,600 per year;
• For a family of three, household income must be at or below $34,700 per year;
• A child must be a California resident and a U.S. citizen, or an eligible qualified immigrant;
• The monthly premiums are only $4 per child and no family pays more than $27 per month; and
• There is no co-payment needed for vaccines or preventative services, and there is only a $5 co-pay for non-preventive illness.

Applications, and assistance can be obtained in 10 languages in California through 1,500 organizations, including schools, churches, community clinics, doctors’ offices, government offices and WIC sites. If you want more information, just call 1-800/880-5305 or visit them online at www.healthyfamilies.ca.gov.