***** The San Francisco Chronicle AUGUST 13, 2000, SUNDAY, SUNDAY EDITION SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. 6; EDITORIALS HEADLINE: Why All the Barriers To Insuring the Children?
TO PROTECT America's children from the negative consequences of welfare reform, President Clinton created a health program for uninsured children in 1998. Yet millions of families whose children qualify for low-cost or free health-care coverage mistakenly believe that these state-administered programs don't apply to them.
The figures are rather dismal. Of the 11 million children who qualify, 7 million are not enrolled in free health-care programs. Now, a new national survey finds that 6 out of 10 eligible parents believe their children do not qualify for what is called, at the federal level, State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP). Yet 4 out of 5 parents say they would enroll their children if they knew they met the eligibility requirements.
In California, the program for uninsured children is called Healthy Families, even though it covers kids, but not their parents. Twenty-one percent of California's children have no health coverage, which translates into more than 2 million uninsured children in the state. California ranks 47th in the country in that category -- only Texas, Arkansas and Missouri have more uninsured kids.
One reason for the state's appalling record is that under former Gov. Pete Wilson, the complex application form ran 16 pages, discouraging many parents from applying. Such complicated forms -- which some health officials believe were a deliberate attempt to reduce the number of enrollments -- also created formidable obstacles to parents who are functionally illiterate or non-English speakers.
Now reduced to four pages of fine print, the application is still so difficult that Contra Costa County spends more than $1 million in state, federal and foundation funding to hire outreach workers to help parents fill out forms for state-supported health care.
There is no good reason for enrollment forms to be so complicated. Some state officials argue that they need to distinguish between the "deserving" poor and those who would unfairly request coverage.
But, in fact, children's health coverage is meant for those with moderate means. Many parents think they are not poor enough to qualify for health coverage. But a California family of four with infants and an income as high as $34,100 can qualify, as can families with children ages 1 to 5 and income of approximately $22,000 a year. Families with many children and higher incomes often qualify as well.
Another reason California has so many eligible but unenrolled children is that undocumented immigrant parents -- fearful of all encounters with officials -- often don't realize that their children, as citizens, qualify for free health coverage.
Some parents, moreover, feel there is a stigma attached to taking "welfare." Even when they have no health coverage for themselves, pride sometimes prevents them seeking free coverage available to their kids.
To reach parents who are uninformed, believe they earn too much or are fearful of contacting health officials, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has just launched a $26 million three-year campaign called Covering Kids. As part of the back-to school preparations that take place between now and mid-September, thousands of local schools and statewide coalitions will make a concerted effort to inform parents about the health coverage that is available to their children.
In a society with a genuine commitment to care for its children, it would be unnecessary for foundations to spend millions of dollars to inform parents about health-care coverage for their kids or to help them decipher complicated application forms. The government would properly publicize and promote health care for uninsured children.
Here is the shame of a post-welfare society that has turned "entitlement" into a dirty word. The simplest benefit -- health care for children -- is poorly advertised, stigmatized as welfare and difficult to obtain.
Makes you wonder how government would act if its leaders were not so concerned about the next generation. *****
Pace Barbara Ehrenreich, the existence of huge gaps between the eligible & the enrolled with regard to nearly all social programs that can help the working class -- employed or unemployed -- as well as large sums of unspent TANF funds means that leftists should _never_ let the government off the hook.
Yoshie