California County Provides Children's Health Insurance.

• Position: Brief Article

Uninsured children in Santa Clara County, Calif., will become a phenomenon of the past under its new Children's Health Initiative set to begin this month. County supervisors approved a plan in October to insure additional children by combining existing resources with new tobacco settlement funds.

The initiative will provide outreach and enrollment assistance to the county's estimated 69,000 uninsured children with the goal of enrolling them in Medi-Cal (California's Medicaid program), Healthy Families (California's State Children's Health Insurance Program [SCHIP]) or in a separate insurance plan. Of the 69,000 uninsured children, around 50,000 are thought to be eligible for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families.

"The community has adopted the slogan, 'Leave No Child Behind,"' says Leona Butler, executive director of Santa Clara Family Health Plan. She heads a public organization that will administer the health insurance plan under the initiative, and already administers Healthy Families and Medi-Cal in the county. Children are eligible to participate in the Children's Health Initiative if their family income is between 250 percent and 300 percent of federal poverty guidelines, if they are residents of Santa Clara County and if they are not eligible for any other public health insurance program. The initiative will also cover undocumented children who are ineligible for Medi-Cal and SCRIP.

The same benefits package as Healthy Families will be provided, including health, dental and vision services, at an estimated annual cost of $1,000 per child. Annual estimates for the total cost for the first year of the program range between $8 million and $12 million...