Davis Signs Three Bills to Increase Medi-Cal, Healthy Families Enrollment

Gov. Gray Davis (D) this weekend signed three bills that focused on the Healthy Families and Medi-Cal insurance programs, the Los Angeles Times reports (Morain/Ingram, Los Angeles Times, 10/15).

• SB 493: Sponsored by Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford), the bill will allow households receiving food stamps to also receive a letter at the time of their recertification asking their permission to submit income and family information from their food stamps file. The state will use that information to determine the households' eligibility for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families.
  
• AB 59: Sponsored by Assembly member Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), the measure will allow a school district to ask a family enrolled in the National School Lunch Program "if they are interested" in state-sponsored health care. The school subsequently could forward income information to the county welfare department or to Healthy Families.
  
• AB 495: Sponsored by Assembly member Manny Diaz (D-San Jose), the bill will create a Children's Health Initiative Matching Fund to provide local agencies federal matching dollars to insure children who do not qualify for Healthy Families or Medi-Cal and whose family incomes are at or below 300% of the federal poverty level. The matching grants will come from unused federal Healthy Families funds. Such an action would require a federal waiver, which would not be submitted until after the federal government approves all other pending waiver requests for Healthy Families (Office of the Governor release, 10/14).