Santa Clara County Children’s Health Initiative Enters Partnership with Sun Microsystems Employees
The Santa Clara County Children's Health Initiative, a program developed to provide health coverage to the county's estimated 70,000 uninsured children, has entered a fund-raising partnership with employees at Sun Microsystems, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Employees at Sun recently launched a month-long e-mail campaign that raised $3,000 in the first week. In addition, the Sun Foundation, which matches employee contributions to charities, has agreed to match employee donations to the Children's Health Initiative. The total amount raised through the partnership will be available in mid-January (Guido, San Jose Mercury News, 1/2). The Children's Health Initiative provides health coverage through Medi-Cal, Healthy Families or Healthy Kids, a county health plan administered by Santa Clara Family Health Plan. Healthy Kids provides health coverage for uninsured children in families that have annual incomes of up to three times the federal poverty level, or $52,956 for a family of four, and do not qualify for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families. Participants receive comprehensive coverage, and some pay small premiums and copayments on a sliding scale. The $14 million initiative receives $3 million from the county's share of the national tobacco settlement, $2 million from the commission that controls state tobacco tax funds, $1.4 million from the city of San Jose and $1 million from the Santa Clara Family Health Plan. Officials hope that private donations will provide $7 million per year (California Healthline, 7/31/01). The Children's Health Initiative, which has enrolled 24,000 children since last January, will use the funds raised through the Sun partnership to help cover the cost of premiums and co-payments for children enrolled in Healthy Kids. Initiative officials hope that the Sun campaign represents the first of "many partnerships with private funding sources" (San Jose Mercury News, 1/2).
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