Children Health Insurance 

Uninsured kids: Wakeup call

Partner: 
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Summary: 

Santa Cruz’s Healthy Kids program was wildly successful until 2009, when the battered economy threatened its funding. Like 28 other programs in California, the county’s Healthy Kids program was lauded for providing health coverage for virtually every poor child who was not otherwise insured, regardless of immigration status. By early 2010, however, the program had reached a crossroads: it was forced to freeze enrollment and faced financial struggle.

Impact Summary: 

Santa Cruz’s Healthy Kids program was wildly successful until 2009, when the battered economy threatened its funding. Like 28 other programs in California, the county’s Healthy Kids program was lauded for providing health coverage for virtually every poor child who was not otherwise insured, regardless of immigration status. By early 2010, however, the program had reached a crossroads: it was forced to freeze enrollment and faced financial struggle.

Results
Funding for kids health care programs unraveling
Jocelyn Weiner | January 22, 2010
SANTA CRUZ -- Donna Gilmartin was worried. She'd moved back to Santa Cruz in 2007 and she still had no insurance for her 10-week-old son, Bryce. Working part time as an audiologist, Gilmartin didn't qualify for benefits. But her boss told her about a county-administered children's insurance program called Healthy Kids. Gilmartin immediately enrolled her son, who stayed with the program until she landed a full-time job with benefits a year later. Healthy Kids, Gilmartin said, was a "blessing."
Read More
Results
County's safety net clinics feel impact of uninsured kids
J.M. Brown | January 22, 2010
Santa Cruz County's safety net health services -- community clinics and hospitals that provide many low-income and uninsured residents with their only medical treatment option -- are starting to see the impact of the area's growing number of uninsured children.
Read More
Results
Pediatrician sees stress in parents' eyes
J.M. Brown | January 22, 2010
CAPITOLA -- Increasingly, a lack of access to children's insurance is showing up -- albeit in subtle ways -- in pediatricians' waiting rooms. While doctors are not reporting a marked fall-off in patients, they are taking more phone calls from parents who can't afford to bring their kids in for a visit. And when families do come in, parents often express an unsettling level of anxiety about whether they'll lose their job or be able to keep up with the rising cost of insurance.
Read More
Results
Santa Cruz County Healthy Kids program once a model plan
Jocelyn Wiener | January 22, 2010
Santa Cruz County started its Healthy Kids program in 2004, the ninth county in the state to take concrete steps toward universal health care coverage for all children.
Read More
Results
A parent's worst nightmare: sick child, no insurance
Richard Kipling, CHCF Center for Health Reporting | January 23, 2010
Every parent knows it. The late-night sound of a child coughing uncontrollably. A flushed face that can only mean fever. A normally active child rendered listless by illness. For most, the worry is wrenching, but the routine is simple if urgent -- scoop up the child for an immediate trip to the family pediatrician's office, present an insurance card, fill out forms and perhaps fork over a co-pay. But for some -- a growing number in Santa Cruz County, and elsewhere in this economy -- insurance for their children is something they just cannot afford. And for doctors treating children, they see an increasing panic among parents who cannot provide for their kids, who must take risks and shortcuts with their children's health.
Read More
Results
Santa Cruz pediatrician: Healthy Kids gives the uninsured 'dignity'
J.M. Brown | January 23, 2010
SANTA CRUZ -- Before Healthy Kids was created six years ago, veteran pediatrician Dr. Christine Griger could only see patients whose families had private insurance, Medi-Cal or enough money to pay out-of-pocket. If a family slipped through the cracks because they lost insurance and didn't qualify for public health insurance, there was little she could do for them.
Read More
Results
$4 stands between mom and health care for children
Megha Satyanarayana | January 23, 2010
Andrea Eaton is lost in the labyrinth of health insurance because of $4 she earns each month. The 32-year-old single mother of five has two younger children she is trying to transition to Healthy Families, a government-funded health plan for children in working families that can't afford private coverage.
Read More
Results
Listening with her heart, Watsonville doctor sees more uninsured kids, worries about their health
Jocelyn Weiner | January 23, 2010
WATSONVILLE -- Dr. Madhu Raghavan looks meaningfully at 7-year-old Christian Montoya. "Have you ever listened to your heart?" she asks her small patient. Christian sits on a table in Raghavan's Watsonville office, his teddy-bear-bespeckled paper gown rustling as he swings his feet. "Mmmn-mmmn," Christian says. Meaning no. "Do you want to?" "Mmmh-hmmm." Meaning yes. She places her stethoscope over the little boy's ears. "What does it sound like?" "Ummm," he pauses for a moment. "I think I can't remember."
Read More
Results
Otherwise uninsurable kids find care in Healthy Kids
Jocelyn Weiner | January 23, 2010
SANTA CRUZ -- Dina Larsen struggled to find someone willing to insure her baby daughter. Little Tawny, now nearly 18 months, was born with a condition that inhibited the development of her muscles. She's a sweet baby, good-natured and quick to smile. But she's struggled to hold up her head or grab things -- motor skills typically mastered at a much younger age. Doctors didn't know what caused Tawny's condition, and that fact combined with a history of diagnostic tests and hospitalizations scared off the insurance companies.
Read More
Results
Father looks ahead and hopes for best
Genevieve Bookwalter | January 23, 2010
SANTA CRUZ -- Mike Welsh doesn't have health insurance. A freelance "collaborative, interactive" artist who recently lost his steady job selling fresh bread at Bay Area farmers markets, the 34-year-old father of a young son can't afford to see a physician when he catches the flu or twists an ankle. And while that bothers the Santa Cruz resident, it's nowhere near as bad, he said, as if his 3-year-old son Sagan -- "the little guy" -- were not signed up for the local First 5 insurance program, which covers children younger than 5 from low-income families.
Read More
Results
Leaders look for ways to keep Healthy Kids afloat and kids insured
Jocelyn Weiner | January 24, 2010
Seven years ago, a group of Santa Cruz County leaders came together around a shared vision: They wanted to provide health insurance to every child in the county, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.
Read More
Results
State budget cuts threaten Healthy Kids effort
Kurtis Alexander | January 24, 2010
SANTA CRUZ -- The future of the county's Healthy Kids program, which has successfully linked thousands of uninsured children with medical care, is hanging on policy decisions made far from Santa Cruz, and health care advocates are worried. The governor is calling for halting state funds vital to the local insurance effort, while federal lawmakers appear to be abandoning legislation that may have patched some of the gaps in California's cash-strapped health care programs.
Read More
Results
Medical foundation chief sees rocky road for kids health care
Richard Kipling, CHCF Center for Health Reporting | January 24, 2010
SANTA CRUZ -- Larry deGhetaldi sat in the audience during one of the early planning sessions for the Healthy Kids program in 2003. DeGhetaldi, president of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Santa Cruz at Sutter Hospital, was impressed by the passion of the participants, by their commitment to helping the county's undocumented, uninsured kids. But, he wondered, how would the community respond? Would they reject such a bootstrap effort to cover undocumented children? "I was concerned about whether this community would push back on this issue because it would preferentially help undocumented kids," deGhetaldi remembered. He was pleasantly surprised. "As it unfolded, there was zero criticism from the community," deGhetaldi said.
Read More
Results
Editorial: As we see it, keep children healthy
Editor | January 25, 2010
The economic uncertainty faced by many Americans is having a stark readout locally for many children. A toxic political climate has combined with historic budget shortfalls to leave a majority of Santa Cruz County kids at risk of losing health insurance -- at a time when families are unable to pick up the cost themselves.
Read More
Results
Impact of "Uninsured Kids"
Staff | October 26, 2010
“Uninsured Kids: Wakeup Call” was a three-day series of 14 stories published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on Jan. 22-24, 2010.  The project examined the problematic funding issues of Santa Cruz’s Healthy Kids program, supported primarily by foundation grants and other private contributions.  The program had experienced tremendous losses in funding in the early period of the recession. 
Read More