To Ensure Healthier Kids

Project FAITH (Family Access and Innovation to Health) is a community coalition of churches and health organizations dedicated to expanding access to affordable health care for low-income working families in Orange County.

Recently, Project FAITH urged county health care leaders to ensure that every child in Orange County obtain some form of health insurance.

Its proposal calls for pooling public and private funds to buy low-cost, basic health coverage for uninsured children who don’t qualify for the more comprehensive, and much more expensive, government programs. It builds on an Orange County tradition of delivering health care to low-income people that begins with contributions from private providers.

A group of local hospitals--Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, St. Joseph Hospital in Orange and St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton--currently funds limited health coverage for about 4,000 Orange County children of low-income families through the CaliforniaKids Healthcare Foundation. These children receive primary and preventive care, dental, vision and limited emergency services at an annual cost of $400 per child.

Also, publicly funded health insurance programs provide a wider scope of benefits, including hospital care and surgery, and are much more costly--from $800 to $1,000 per child per year. Medi-Cal covers the poorest families, while Healthy Families covers children in uninsured working families with incomes too high to qualify for Medi-Cal.

In the last few years, public health insurance programs for children have undergone significant expansion. Less restrictive eligibility rules and simplified application make it easier to obtain coverage, especially for parents who move from welfare to work.

Thanks to these initiatives and a concerted outreach effort by organizations, including the Coalition of Orange County Community Clinics and the Health Care Council, many more children in low-and moderate-income familes enjoy free or low-cost health insurance coverage with comprehensive benefits.

And the Orange County Health Care Agency has recently begun developing an ambitious plan to ensure all Orange County children access to health care and a regular medical provider.

But there are still about 12,000 low-income Orange County children who don’t qualify for these public programs and who need access to health care now.

For these children, the Project FAITH proposal offers a cost-effective way to provide basic health care benefits through a private, nonprofit organization.

CaliforniaKids has had no problem signing up kids and has periodically suspended enrollment in order to secure additional funding for thousands of new applicants.

Working with providers, clinics and a broad network of community agencies statewide, CaliforniaKids has earned the trust of both the families they serve and community organizations by providing low-cost, high-value health services. Families complete a one-page application, pay a one-time $25 enrollment fee and make small co-payments for medical visits and emergency care.

In 1983, while researching the newly implemented Medi-Cal hospital contracting program, I interviewed several Orange County hospital administrators. Contrary to my expectations, one of the county’s largest nonprofit hospitals, with a strong community service reputation and charitable mission, initially refused to become a Medi-Cal contractor under the new state program.

More offended by the state’s take-it-or-leave-it attitude than by the low-rate proposal itself, this hospital decided to provide medical care for poor people on its own terms. The hospital pledged to provide the same level of charity care, about $2 million annually, as it estimated it was losing in Medi-Cal underpayments.

This decision received broad support from the clinical staff and also generated considerable private financial contributions for charity care from the hospital’s auxiliary organizations and community donors.

Orange County has been called conservative and uncaring in the provision of health services for low-income people. That’s a bad rap. What people in this county really seem to prefer is to help less-fortunate residents through private efforts and programs that deliver high-value, essential services at low cost.

Project FAITH’s partners--the Orange County Congregation Community Organization, Latino Health Access, California Health Decisions and the Loyola Institute for Spirituality--have proposed an approach that enjoys the support of a number of the county’s leading health and religious organizations.

A small group of private, nonprofit hospitals has taken the first step by funding a successful demonstration project that has helped 4,000 children obtain access to care through CaliforniaKids--for less than half the annual cost of more comprehensive government programs.

The price is right and the time is right to move ahead to ensure access to health care for all Orange County children.