Rising numbers of uninsured low-income children in Santa Clara County prompted a public-private partnership to develop a county-specific insurance product in order to provide health insurance coverage to all eligible children whose families earn up to 300% of the FPL. The effort includes Working Partnerships, a labor movement advocacy group; PACT, a collaboration of faith-based groups; and the County of Santa Clara. The CHI builds upon recent efforts to recruit, enroll, and retain uninsured families and children into Medi-Cal and Healthy Families (CHIP) and adds a third program, Healthy Kids, which is available to undocumented children and middle-income children. Santa Clara is the first county in the US to develop and implement a comprehensive health insurance program to make health care accessible to all children. Through extensive outreach and enrollment activities, workers educate families, evaluate the families' eligibility and assist in enrolling their children in the appropriate program. Implementation is beginning at CBOs, community clinics, schools, and mass enrollment events. Major systems changes, including an electronic application system and unprecedented coordination between the County’s Health and Hospital System Social Services Agency, are key features of this program. The evaluation will assess the effectiveness of the outreach and enrollment activities and strategies, retention rates, and cost-benefit ratios. The CHI was launched on 01/02/01. During January, applications were completed for 2,425 children who were previously uninsured. The presentation will describe the development of the public/private collaboration and provide results on enrollment rates and outreach strategies in community-based organizations and schools.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the presentation the participants will 1.Learn how a public/private venture secured universal health insurance for low/middle income children within a county 2.Identify outreach strategies which contributed to successful enrollment of low-income children into health insurance plans
Keywords: Child Health, Health Insurance
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.