California Healthline Highlights Recent Children’s Health Coverage News
Efforts to expand children's health insurance coverage recently advanced in Napa, Orange and Ventura counties. Summaries appear below.
The Napa Valley Vintners on Friday awarded a $1 million grant to the Napa County Children's Health Initiative, the Napa Valley Register reports. The grant is the largest donation from an industry to a children's health group in the state, according to the Register.
The donation will fully fund the program for three years, according to NVV Executive Director Linda Reiff.
NVV also awarded $3,604,500 to other health programs and $1,548,000 to the Napa Valley Wine Auction Health Care Fund (Huffman, Napa Valley Register, 11/19).
A complete list of NVV grant recipients is available online.
Orange County Supervisor Lou Correa on Friday postponed a vote on expanding children's health care programs in the county to allow more time to study the proposals and answer questions, the Orange County Register reports.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors planned to vote on Tuesday on one of several options for expanding children's health care in the county, including a $2.1 million proposal Correa introduced last month. Correa's plan would provide the funding over three years to hire 22 county workers to enroll eligible uninsured children in state and federal health insurance programs.
Another proposal would establish a program called "Children's Medi-Cal Outreach," which would be administered by the county's social service agency and supported by state and federal matching funds. The plan would cost the county $900,000.
The county also is considering creating a nine-member outreach team within the social service agency that would be funded entirely by state and federal money. The board also could choose to not change the current program (Lowe, Orange County Register, 11/21).
Ventura County officials on Wednesday opened the Santa Clara Valley Center as part of an effort to check children's eligibility for all public and private low-cost health insurance programs using one form, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The system is intended to increase enrollment in existing public health insurance programs, such as Medi-Cal and Healthy Families, according to Supervisor Steve Bennett.
Officials estimate as many as 27,000 of the county's 32,000 uninsured children are eligible for one of the two programs but have not enrolled. County health officials said the application process has been an obstacle to enrolling in the programs in the past (Los Angeles Times, 11/18).