California Governor Jerry Brown has decided to end the Healthy Families insurance program in 2013. Children covered by that program will be shifted into the Medi-Cal program. The purpose of this change is so the state can save money. Legislators see problems with this plan, and want Healthy Families reinstated.
To understand this story, you will need a little bit of background. Healthy Families is a low cost public health insurance program in California that covers children and teenagers. It provides health, dental, and vision coverage. It is for kids who come from families who do not qualify for Medi-Cal, and who are not covered by a private form of health insurance.
Medi-Cal is the shortened form of the name for the California Medical Assistance Program. It is part of the state’s Medicaid program. It provides health insurance coverage for low-income families, seniors, people who have certain types of disabilities, children who are in foster care, women who are pregnant, and some low-income adults.
California Governor Jerry Brown has decided to end the Healthy Families program. Families whose children are currently covered by the program will be shifted over to Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, beginning in 2013.
It will affect about 200,000 children who come from families who earn up to 133% of the federal poverty level. The shift is expected to be completed by 2014.
There are some big problems with this plan, and lawmakers who realize it are trying to get the Healthy Families program reinstated. One problem is that the income guidelines cut-off for Medi-Cal is lower than the one for Healthy Families. The limit for Healthy Families is about 2 and a half times higher than it is for Medi-Cal. The shift could cause many children to become ineligible for coverage.
Another huge problem is that it will force hundreds of thousands of kids in California to change doctors and insurance coverage right before 2014, when the Affordable Care Act would provide a new ways for the parents of these children to receive health insurance coverage. Why not keep the plan in place until that big change occurs?
The change was supposed to save the state money, but there is reason to believe that it will not. Right now, the federal government provides funding for two-thirds of the cost of the Healthy Families program. The federal government only provides funding for half of the cost of the Medi-Cal program. This shift could result in costing the state of California more money than it is spending right now on these two programs.
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