Healthy Kids Program Boosts Dental Care in Santa Clara County
Santa Clara County's Healthy Kids program helped significant percentages of children receive dental care, according to a study released on Thursday, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
The study found that more than 60% of county children enrolled in the program had a dentist visit and that about 44% of that group had a cavity filled or underwent some other kind of dental procedure.
Healthy Kids is a county-based health insurance program open to children who are ineligible for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families, California's Medicaid program and version of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, respectively. Generally, children enrolled in Healthy Kids are ineligible for the other programs because they are undocumented immigrants or their families exceed income eligibility limits.
About 10,000 children are enrolled in the program in Santa Clara County.
The study was conducted by:
- Johns Hopkins University;
- Mathematica Policy Research;
- UC-San Francisco; and
- Urban Institute (Fernandez, San Jose Mercury News, 9/11).