State Faces Enrollment Choices in Debate Over Kids’ Health Insurance
KPCC's "Patt Morrison" on Thursday included a discussion with three stakeholders in the debate over funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
The state could cut coverage for some children enrolled in Healthy Families, California's version of SCHIP, at the end of the year if President Bush and Congress do not reach an agreement on federal funding for the program.
Guests on the program included:
- Lesley Cummings, executive director of the California Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, which administers Healthy Families;
- Dennis Smith, director of CMS' Center for Medicaid and State Operations; and
- Kristen Golden Testa, director of the California Health Program at the Children's Partnership (Morrison, "Patt Morrison," KPCC, 11/30).
Audio of the segment is available online.
"It is time for [California] to join the civilized world" and guarantee health insurance coverage for children, Robert Fellmeth, director of the Children's Advocacy Institute, writes in a San Diego Union-Tribune opinion piece. "To continue to resist based on ideological slogans -- when it costs virtually nothing financially from the state -- is a test of ethical sensibility and basic math aptitude," Fellmeth writes (Fellmeth, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/30).
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