Salud Carbajal and Bill Cirone: Healthy Kids Program Gets Great Results
http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/0319_salud_carbajal_and_bill_cirone_healthy_kids_program_gets_great_results/
By Salud Carbajal and Bill Cirone
Providing health insurance is a benefit not only to needy children, but to their families, care facilities and the community
“Tracy” (not her real name) was worried. She was a single mother working full time as a dental assistant, and her employer didn’t offer dependent health insurance coverage for her 4-year-old son, “David.”
Staff members at the Community Action Commission’s Head Start program told her about a locally run insurance program, Healthy Kids. Tracy enrolled David immediately, and David was able to get a physical and a dental examination. He is receiving the services he needs, and now Tracy doesn’t have to worry constantly about how to afford health care for him.
Outcomes such as little David’s are reflected in the remarkable results of the preliminary 2008-09 Children’s Health Initiative of Santa Barbara County evaluation, which demonstrates the positive impact on children’s health once children are insured.
For one thing, insured children are now accessing medical and dental services, and that in itself is making a positive difference. Using surveys given to parents of uninsured children at the time of enrollment into health insurance and then at one year after enrollment, the percentage of children visiting a doctor within the past year increased from 62 percent to 90 percent. Even more dramatically, the percentage of children visiting a dentist within the past six months increased from 22 percent at enrollment to 93 percent at re-enrollment after one year.
The savings through preventive care are significant. State evaluations funded by the Packard Foundation showed that children who get preventive medical visits have half the number of sick child visits. This is reflected in the CHISB evaluation that shows that 22 percent of newly enrolled children reported school absences within the past month to only 8 percent of children who had health insurance for one year.
Secondly, CHISB outreach enrolls three children in public health insurance for every one enrolled in Healthy Kids. Of the 2,382 children enrolled through Santa Barbara County Healthy Kids outreach efforts from July 2008 through June 2009, nearly three-quarters (74 percent) were eligible for Medi-Cal/Healthy Families. This has resulted in a 12.5 percent increase in Medi-Cal enrollment in our county since 2006, along with a corresponding 27.4 percent increase in Healthy Families enrollment.
The Children’s Health Initiative of Santa Barbara County was started when a group of concerned people came together in the late 1990s after Santa Barbara County had been identified as having the largest percentage of uninsured children of all counties in California.
Several key partners played important roles in the efforts to enroll uninsured children in public health insurance. These key partners include the First 5 Santa Barbara County Children and Families Commission, the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department, the KIDS Network, Marian Medical Center, the Santa Barbara County Education Office, the Community Action Commission, community health clinics and the network of Family Resource Centers. These organizations continue to meet quarterly to coordinate health insurance enrollment efforts for uninsured children from low- to middle-income families.
The bottom line is that health insurance for children is critical to the financial stability of county public health clinics, community clinics and hospitals, which serve so many members of the community. One local hospital estimated a loss of $239,098 in 2009 in just its emergency room alone, because of costs for uninsured children.
By providing health insurance to children, Healthy Kids helps the children who receive the necessary preventive services and treatment, the family members who previously had to spend so much time and effort worrying about how to properly care for their children, and also all members of the community who rely on the financial stability of health-care facilities countywide.
It’s nice to be able to point out a program that is working efficiently and effectively to benefit children, families and the community at large.
— Salud Carbajal is Santa Barbara County’s First District supervisor. Bill Cirone is Santa Barbara County’s superintendent of schools.
http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/0319_salud_carbajal_and_bill_cirone_healthy_kids_program_gets_great_results/