A scary time in health care for kids

By Mark Diel

Halloween is here. Time for trick-or-treating, costumes and scary creatures. This Halloween, however, is frightening on another level for California's children. Why? Because thousands of kids are in danger of losing their health insurance.

2007 was supposed to be the year of health care reform. For the past 10 months, we have urged elected officials to stop talking about the problem and get it done. We remain supportive of covering all kids as part of a broader health care reform package, but with each passing day, the risk to children grows. The ones who will suffer most from inaction in the special session are kids -- our most vulnerable population.

Unlike imaginary ghosts and goblins, being frightened about kids losing health coverage is all too real for thousands of families in California. Children's Health Initiatives (CHIs) in as many as 18 counties, including Napa, could be forced to drop kids from coverage beginning as early as February 2008. Up to 40 percent of children enrolled in local programs through CHIs may lose coverage by July 2008 and 66 percent could be without coverage by 2010. Nearly all of the CHIs have capped enrollment due to insufficient funding so children who need health insurance are being turned away in increasing numbers.

In addition, more than $30 million in recent budget cuts slashed outreach programs that would have enrolled as many as 94,000 eligible children in state and local health insurance programs. At the national level, re-authorization of the federal SCHIP program was recently vetoed by President Bush, jeopardizing coverage for more than 400,000 California children. Moreover, stricter eligibility requirements for SCHIP members were recently announced, effectively making thousands of children ineligible for the program. And yet, these regressive steps go against the values of the overwhelming majority of Californians -- 82 percent -- who support covering all California's kids. This isn't, or shouldn't be, a partisan issue, as Republican voters by a 2-1 margin also support covering kids.

Why such broad-based support? Because people recognize the importance of prevention. Kids with health insurance are more likely to get the care they need to ensure healthy development, immunizations to prevent diseases and basic check-ups with primary care physicians. Healthy kids also miss fewer school days and grow up to become more productive members of society. And when parents don't have to stay home and care for their sick children, they too miss fewer work days and are more productive.

At the Children's Health Initiative of Napa County, we work every day towards ensuring that all kids in Napa County have health insurance. There are 24 similar programs operating in counties throughout the state, providing comprehensive health insurance that includes not just medical coverage, but vision and dental care that is so vital to a child's healthy development and ability to learn. The CHIs have shown the way to covering all kids, but we need the state and federal governments as partners to enable every child in California to have a healthy future.

The window of opportunity to cover all of California's children is closing. Moreover, when that window closes, all or some of the progress we've made at the local level will begin to unravel and thousands of children will lose their health coverage. That's why, regardless of the outcome of the broader health care reform debate, the special legislative session must at least produce policy and funding that covers all California kids beginning in 2008. Anything less will be a colossal failure, haunting our elected officials and their constituents for years to come.

(Diel lives in Napa.)

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