Links and Resources

New Poll Shows 81% of Voters Support Solutions to Ensure All California Kids Have Health Insurance

The United Ways of California released the results of a new, statewide survey on children’s health coverage. Mirroring the results of a previous survey done in May 2006, the new poll found that California voters continue to show overwhelming support for providing all of California’s children with comprehensive health insurance.

Recent Statewide Poll Results Find California Voters Want
to Ensure All Children Have Health Insurance

According to a recent statewide poll conducted for the United Way, voters in California strongly support ensuring all children have health insurance. Support is both broad and deep as voters of all ideologies and across the state support such a proposal. The high level of support for covering all kids is due to the fact that voters care a great deal about the issue, they believe the goal of covering every child is achievable, and they feel the state can afford it.

Monitoring the Expansion of Children’s Health Initiatives in California

A study prepared by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) provides an analysis of short-term steps needed to sustain recent gains in providing health insurance to children at the county level, primarily by building upon the success of California’s Children Health Initiatives, a local public/private partnership effort that has emerged in 31 counties (17 of which are operational and 14 in the planning states) across California. At the same time, however, researchers raise concerns about long-term program financing and sustainability for the CHIs.

Policy Framework for Outreach, Enrollment, Retention and Utilization for Health Care Coverage in California

Community Health Councils, Inc. reviewed local CHI’s concluding that CHI’s have been very effective in their program to date. The report contains 10 specific policy recommendations based on local successes that have the potential to improve access to health care for children across California including: strategic financing and access to technology; providing broad community access and promotion of available programs; simplifying and coordinating applications and renewals to ease the process for families; maintaining communication with families to ensure enrollment, utilization, and retention of services.

Cover California's Kids: Three New Reports Highlight Optimal Outreach and Enrollment Strategies

The Path to Accessing Health Coverage: Outreach, Enrollment, Retention and Utilization

California still faces the reality of more than 800,000 uninsured children. This policy brief identifies future challenges and opportunities and puts forward principles to strengthen outreach, enrollment, retention and utilization in California.

Reaching Out and Reaching In: Understanding Efforts to Identify and Enroll Uninsured Children into Health Insurance Programs

This report provides a review of what is known about the effectiveness of local outreach and enrollment strategies, and a framework for ways to evaluate the future outreach and enrollment programs. In California, many counties and their private partners and funders are refining and expanding their existing outreach and enrollment efforts to more effectively reach a broader range of families.

Increasing Enrollment and Retention in Children’s Health Insurance Statewide Programs Through Trained Assistors

This report highlights how critical trained assistors are in making the enrollment process work for families and to maximizing the number of children enrolled in health coverage programs. The report's recommendations are designed to establish assistors as professionals and to assure ongoing and high-quality assistance is available to families throughout California.

---

Estimated Cost and Impacts of Proposals to Expand Health Insurance for California Children

This November 2005 policy brief by the Lewin Group, prepared for The California Endowment, estimates the cost and coverage impacts of three pending proposals to expand health insurance coverage in California, with particular emphasis on the effect these approaches would have on children. The report analyzes legislation introduced by Assemblymember Wilma Chan and State Senator Martha Escutia, AB 772/SB 437 (Escutia/Chan); a proposal by The New America Foundation (New America); and legislation by Assemblymembers Keith Richman and Joe Nation AB 1670/AB 1671 (Richman/Nation), which also call for covering both adults and children.

Kids at Risk. Declining Employer-Based Health Coverage in California and the United States: A Crisis for Working Families.

This policy brief, produced by researchers at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and Working Partnerships USA, analyzes children¹s health insurance trends from 2000 to 2004, and finds that employer-based health coverage has eroded significantly over the past five years due to increasing premium rates.  The report warns that without immediate action, the trend will continue, and by 2010, less than half of California's children will be insured through a parent's employer.  

Policy Brief. Current Strategies to Expand Dependent Health Coverage.

This report examines federal, state, private sector and community-based strategies nationwide to expand job-based coverage for workers and their children in the face of rising healthcare costs and a decrease in employer-sponsored dependent coverage. It was produced by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) through funding from The California Endowment.

100% Campaign

The California Endowment launched this strategic partnership of three leading children's policy and advocacy organizations in order to advocate for policies that expand health insurance for California's children.

State Business Leaders Support Health Coverage for California's Kids

The California Endowment and United Ways’ Covering California’s Children Initiative (a project of seventeen local United Ways) conducted a series of meetings with high level executives in San Francisco, Sacramento, Tulare, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Oxnard and San Diego in June and July 2005. In all, more than 60 business leaders, ranging from sole proprietors to Fortune 500 companies, participated in the meetings. Consistently, employers reported that providing health care for all children is the right thing to do and business leaders want to be a part of the solution.

Health...in Brief: Health Insurance Coverage for All Children: A Goal Within Reach

It is well-documented that health insurance improves the health of children. Yet, about 1 million California children age 18 and under lack health insurance. Providing health coverage for all children is not only a worthwhile social goal, it is a feasible policy objective that makes good financial sense for California now and in the future.

Survey Finds California Voters Overwhelmingly Support a Plan to Cover all Kids

Four out of five California voters overwhelmingly support a plan to expand access to health insurance to all children in California, according to a statewide survey conducted in March 2005 and funded by the California Endowment.

Study Finds Latino Youths in California Have Lower Health Care Coverage Rates Than Non-Hispanic Whites

Nearly one-fourth of Latino children in California don't have health insurance, and the lack of preventive care has far-reaching consequences on society, according to a study issued by UCLA.

Many Uninsured Children Qualify for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families

This policy brief, created by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research examines the eligibility rates of uninsured children within various legislative districts [TCE0605-2004].

Go Where They Are: Working with Child Care Program to Reach Uninsured California Children

Created by the 100% Campaign, a grantee of The California Endowment, this new report estimates that 170,000 uninsured children attending California day care centers and homes are eligible for free or low-cost health insurance, but are not enrolled. It also recommends ways to increase health insurance enrollment among children [TCE0920-2003].

Expanding Coverage for Children: The Santa Clara County Children¹s Health Initiative

This brief is based on Mathematica¹s evaluation of the Santa Clara County Children¹s Health Initiative (CHI), an ambitious effort launched in January 2001 to extend health coverage to all uninsured children in Santa Clara County, California.

Children's Health Initiative of Greater Los Angeles

Formally launched on June 22, 2004, by The California Endowment and a coalition of nearly 50 local organizations, the Children's Health Initiative of Greater Los Angeles is a three-year expansion of health coverage for eligible children who are now without health insurance with the goal of attaining permanent, long-term solutions to 100 percent coverage of all children.

Insuring California's Healthy Future

Created by The Tomás River Policy Institute, the report details the use of Medi-Cal and Healthy Families Public Insurance Programs by California's Ethnic Minority Communities.