State Budget Update: Proposed Cuts to Healthy Families

More than a million children in California rely on the state's Healthy Families Health Insurance program, designed for families that do not qualify for Medi-Cal. Without Healthy Families, children would not receive regular preventative care, physician services, hospital care, dental and eye care, and other essential services, resulting in increased emergency room use and more frequent hospital stays.

Last year, state leaders slashed $194 million from Healthy Families, endangering children in the program. A temporary fix was achieved through the passage of AB 1422, as well as a First 5 California donation of $81.4 million to the program.  But now Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed two new drastic cuts to Healthy Families:

• Reduce income eligibility limits. The governor has proposed slashing $10.5 million in 2009-10 and $63.9 million in 2010-11 by reducing eligibility from 250 percent to 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL).  This change would result in an estimated 200,000 children losing affordable health coverage.

• Increase premiums/eliminate routine vision care. The governor's budget plan also includes another $21.7 million in cuts to Healthy Families. Under this proposal, monthly premiums for families with incomes between 151 percent and 200 percent of the FPL would increase by 88 percent. This means that premiums would rise from $16 per month per child to $30. Families with three or more children would see premiums increase from $48 per month to $90. Vision benefits for all children in Healthy Families would also be entirely eliminated.

The news gets worse - if the governor's request for additional federal funding is denied, his budget plan proposes completely eliminating the Healthy Families program. This would result in savings of $126 million, with more than 1 million children losing health care coverage.

The California Budget Project recently published a report that breaks down the number of children who would be affected by the Healthy Families cuts by county or by legislative district. According to the report more than 256,000 children in Los Angeles County alone would be left without health care if Healthy Families was eliminated. Local health resources -- such as the countywide Healthy Kids program funded in part by First 5 LA -- are already strained by the current number of enrollees, low-income children who do not qualify for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families.

The landmark passage of the federal health care reform last week has the potential to substantially improve health coverage for young children in California. Click here for more information about health care reform. We will continue to provide updates to Monday Morning Report readers on this important issue.

State Budget Hearings

To help early childhood advocates navigate through the state budget deliberations and in the event that stakeholders wish to testify at hearings, First 5 LA will provide information on legislative committee meetings and hearings that affect young children and their families. Please check back for updates. Scheduled hearings:

• Thursday, April 22 at 9:30 a.m., Room 4203: Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Subcommittee #3 on Health & Human Services. Department of Social Services: Children's programs, Community Care Licensing (CCL)
• NEW: Wednesday, April 21 at 1:30 p.m., Room 444: Assembly Budget Subcommittee #1. Department of Child Support Services

• Wednesday, April 28 at 1:30 p.m. Room 444: Assembly Budget Subcommittee #1. CalWORKs, Stage 1 Child Care, Child Welfare Services and Foster Care, Community Care Licensing