New Outreach Program Will Use School Personnel To Tell Parents of Children’s Health Insurance Options
The California Teachers Association and the California Association of Health Plans on Wednesday launched a statewide program under which school teachers will inform parents about health insurance options for their children, such as Medi-Cal, Healthy Families or Healthy Kids, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Of the almost one million California children who are uninsured, 656,000 are eligible for some form of public health insurance, according to a University of California-Los Angeles study released in June (Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/5). Uninsurance can affect learning and absentee rates, the Los Angeles Times reports (Los Angeles Times, 9/5). "Teachers understand that there is a clear relationship between a lack of health care and school performance," Wayne Johnson, president of the California Teachers Association, said. Under the program, funded by a $547,000 grant from The California Endowment, all 330,000 members of the California Teachers Association, including librarians and nurses, will distribute information on eligibility and hang posters saying, "You Can't Help Kids Learn When They Aren't There." Teachers can "decide for themselves" the best method to inform families about the health plans they could qualify for, the Chronicle reports (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/5).
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