Health Care: State At Risk of Losing $590M
For Lack of Enrollment
For Joseph White, who supports his wife and two children with an annual income of $16,000, luxury items are hardly on the shopping list. Neither is health insurance.
At his annual salary, White ranks among those San Diegans who make too much to qualify for Medi-Cal, the state’s health plan for the poor, but not enough to afford health insurance for his family.
White resigned himself to the fact he could no longer afford to buy health insurance for his children. Two weeks ago however, things changed.
White’s employer, Western Towing in San Diego, invited a county representative to talk about Healthy Families , a subsidized federal health care program for children of the working poor to offer employees the opportunity to buy affordable health insurance for their children.
White qualified and is looking forward to get his children immunized and checked for vision and dental care for just $14 a month.
Despite this success, Healthy Families has long been criticized as being seriously flawed. Critics said the application process alone was too complicated and discouraged enrollment. California still stands to lose $590 million in federal money for Healthy Families because of low enrollment.
Out of the 37,217 uninsured local children eligible for Healthy Families a total of 25,251 children were enrolled as of Oct. 24.
That is down from a high of 28,902 children since the program started in 1998.
Some children were automatically dropped from the program because their parents failed to send back the required “annual eligibility review,” said Dianne Williams, project manager for the San Diego Kids Health Assurance Network.
Williams, an active recruiter for Healthy Families, said many families need more help.
While legislative efforts to retain the unused funds are on the way, the threat of losing money has created a wave of changes.
Carrying The Message
Williams is part of a massive community outreach campaign to create awareness for Healthy Families.
Her strategy: Identify industries known to employ a high percentage of seasonal and part-time workers who are ineligible for health benefits, visit them personally and hope they’ll carry the Healthy Families message to their employees. In the ideal world, the employee agrees to pay a minimal fee to enroll their children in the program. But Williams knows it doesn’t always work that way.
Tom Mazzocco, vice president of human resources at the San Diego Convention Center, said the organization employs some 500 part-time workers at the convention center and the San Diego Concourse.
Their starting salary is $7.50 and none qualify for the center’s health care plan.
Statistics have shown that some 42 percent of all workers in the hotel, motel and restaurant industries are without health benefits, said Sheila Fox, who works with Williams.
Mazzocco and Williams are working together to persuade at least some of these workers to apply for Healthy Families.
Mick Malone, general manager at Western Towing, called Williams after seeing a newspaper ad for the program. He said he was impressed with the quick response.
“I saw a newspaper ad on Oct.1, sent an E-mail on Oct. 2 and set up a meeting on Oct. 3,” Malone said.
Two days later, many of the towing firm’s 130 full-time workers were filling out applications.
Affordability
White, who was among the first employees to sign up for the program, said “This is better for the working people then they can afford to make ends meet.”
White dropped out of the company’s Kaiser Permanente family plan after just six months because he could no longer afford to pay the monthly premium.
“It’s a problem for employees,” Malone said, but not one Western Towing will be able to fix any time soon.
He said the firm didn’t offer any health benefits until four years ago and even now can’t afford to contribute more than 50 percent to cover just employees, he said.
He noted towing and repair services have come a long way in terms of “sophistication and professionalism” in the past 15 years.
At Jifpak Manufacturing in Carlsbad, about 80 percent of the firm’s 110 production workers are signed up with Healthy Families.
At an average $15,000 annual income, most workers qualify for the program, said Maggie Paterson, Jifpak’s human resources manager.
However, some employees still don’t see the point in paying a monthly fee to enroll their children.
“A lot of (workers) go to Mexico because they feel they can go across the border and pay $20 and $35 (for a doctor visit).”
Paterson hopes Jifpak, which makes casings and knitted bags for meat companies, will start offering affordable health care for its low-wage workers in January.
Under the firm’s existing plan, employees pay about $30 a month for health care benefits. Family members can be added at a 100 percent premium paid by employees.
