The Health-Learning Link

As scheduled, Los Angeles County shuttered nine of its 18 health-care clinics this month. Two more will close at the end of September in what will probably be an increasingly painful series of cuts intended to ease the county’s health department deficit. Ever-rising costs and an ever-increasing population without insurance have profoundly strained the county’s safety-net service, which provides health care for the poor as well as emergency and trauma care for all county residents.

Into such a bleak situation a joint effort by California teachers and a statewide insurance trade group injects a rare ray of relief. The California Teachers Assn. and the California Assn. of Health Plans, with a grant from the nonprofit California Endowment, are mounting a campaign to enroll eligible children in government health plans.

Statewide, 1 million children have no medical insurance, according to a UCLA survey released in June. More than half--650,000--are eligible for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, or another low-income plan called Healthy Families, but their parents don’t realize it. In Los Angeles County alone, 242,000 out of more than 300,000 uninsured children qualify but are not enrolled.

With Medi-Cal or Healthy Families coverage, these kids would be able to receive private care rather than being left to seek help at the dwindling number of county clinics--or getting no care at all. Even if they continued to go to one of the seven county clinics still open or to another nonprofit clinic, their coverage would contribute to keeping these crucial community assets solvent.

Yes, teachers already are overburdened with requests to deliver social services that go beyond teaching reading and arithmetic. Focus groups showed that they wanted to get involved, though, because they recognized the link between good health and learning. They won’t be expected to recite the regulations or walk parents through the application process but will pass out information and offer referrals.

Their effort alone isn’t going to save the troubled health-care system. Nor will it relieve state and federal agencies from dealing with the huge number of adults and the remaining children without medical insurance, a crisis that government has for too long left to underfunded counties. But it is the kind of involvement and innovation that that public and the private sectors alike must show to keep the safety net from collapsing entirely.