Councilman wants to help uninsured children apply for health insurance
07 01 08 - 21:59
Plan would provide city staffers to help sign up families for state, federal programs
By ELYSSE JAMES
STAFF WRITER
Comments 2| Recommend 2
A plan to help the families of uninsured Irvine children apply for health insurance through state and federal programs will be presented to the City Council Tuesday.
The program, proposed by Councilman Sukhee Kang, would be the first of its kind for an Orange County city.
About 1,760 (4.2 percent) Irvine children through age 18 are uninsured, Kang said. To identify uninsured children, the plan calls for Irvine Unified School District to send mailers to families.
The first phase of the program, if approved, would be in full force by June and would last six to 12 months. The city will try to identify the uninsured children and will hire three staff members, at $47,000 a year each, to help families fill apply for state and federal health insurance programs, he said.
Kang plans to ask the council to pay for the program out of the city's unallocated surplus funds. Kang said he has met with community groups, including Kaiser Permanente, that have agreed to match funds for more than $70,000.
Phase one would help 60 to 80 percent of the uninsured children, Kang estimates.
Families would have to reapply each year, but each year of the program the city will provide fewer assistants to help with the forms. After the second year, just one staff member would be helping the families, he said. .
There already are certified assistants in the Irvine area that help families sign up for the state health insurance program, Healthy Families. Families can apply for the program online at www.healthyfamilies.ca.gov or through a certified assistant. Irvine has four community organizations that help families apply.
Kang also wants to create a fund to pay for insurance costs for families with incomes at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level.
Children who are not qualified for state and federal programs could apply for CalOptima's Healthy Kids program or Kaiser's Child Health Plan, programs that provide health care for uninsured children.
The city is already planning to hire a public health administrator, and Kang suggests that person can oversee the insurance initiative.
The federal program, State Children's Health Insurance Program, created in 1997, has expired and needs reauthorization from Congress, according to Kang. The program is administered through California as Healthy Families.
Another state health care program, proposed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez and co-authored by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, will be on the November ballot.