County Supervisor Wilma Chan Aims to Get Health Care for Low-Income Children

Bay City News — Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan announced a campaign focusing on 13,000 low-income children in the county who are eligible for publicly funded health programs but are not yet enrolled in them.

Chan said getting children up to the age of 19 enrolled in programs such as Medi-Cal and Healthy Families will be good for the children but also will be beneficial for the county because young people who regularly receive good medical care will make fewer costly visits to hospital emergency rooms.        

The county also will receive more federal and state matching funds for its community health system if more children are enrolled, Chan said.

Low-income children can enroll in Medi-Cal, and children from families with incomes of up to 2.5 times the federal poverty level can enroll in the Healthy Families program, according to Chan. For a family of four, that limit is about $35,000, she said.         

Chan said Alameda County is the first county in the country to accept a challenge issued by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last year to connect all eligible children to publicly funded health programs.

She said Alameda County has committed to work with partners in the community to contact, engage and enroll families to help families and service providers enroll children faster and easier.

The county also will maximize its use of existing county resources, such as staff, outreach and materials, to help enroll more children, Chan said.

At a news conference at La Clinica de la Raza in Oakland's Fruitvale District, Chan also announced that the Board of Supervisors and Alameda Alliance for Health, a non-profit health plan, are committed to continuing to provide vision coverage access for children.

She said Alameda County has nearly 21,000 children who receive vision benefits through the Healthy Families Program but those benefits may be eliminated or curtailed if state officials follow through on planned budget cuts.

The Board of Supervisors and the Alameda Alliance for Health will work together to try to ensure that the benefits remain in force, Chan said.