Tobacco Funds to Be Used to Insure Children

In the first move of its kind in the country, a Silicon Valley county on Tuesday approved a plan to use money from the national settlement with the tobacco industry to guarantee health coverage for all uninsured children.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the Children’s Health Initiative Plan, which sets aside $14 million a year to cover the county’s 69,000 uninsured children--something supporters say is vital for those left behind in Silicon Valley’s technology boom.

“It’s all ready to roll, beginning on Jan. 2,” said Susan Fitts, the county’s director of communication.

The county plan will use the estimated $3 million it receives as its share from the 1998 financial settlement with the tobacco industry to provide health care coverage for uninsured children.

These funds will be supplemented by money from California’s tobacco tax, foundations, the private sector and the county general fund, Fitts said.

The county’s move follows the failure of a similar effort in the area’s largest city, San Jose, earlier this year. California is one of the few states to split its shares of the tobacco settlement with individual cities and counties.

The Santa Clara plan aims to find all children who qualify for state and federally funded programs, sign them up, and pay the modest premiums for those who cannot afford them.

The plan would further seek out the remaining children who do not qualify for public programs because they either are illegal immigrants or their parents make too much money to qualify, and sign them up for private insurance policies.

“Will they be insured as of Jan. 2? No. We have to go out and find them first,” Fitts said. “But this is a way to get the registration started.”