County reaches out to 8,000 uninsured children

<p>Sonoma County plans to enroll about 8,000 uninsured children in health care services at a cost of about $11 million over the next five years.</p><p>Details of the Healthy Kids program, mandated by the state Legislature last session, will be outlined to Sonoma County supervisors today by Department of Health Services officials.</p><p>Currently, there are six programs in the county aimed at providing medical services for uninsured children and each one has different income eligibility guidelines.</p><p>"We have multiple payers for different services that are not coordinated and who provide different levels of care," Health Services Director Rita Scardaci said Monday. "The goal is to fix this problem."</p><p>The goal of the Healthy Kids program is to help people sort through the complexities of enrolling in already existing health care programs, and to raise money to pay for medical services for children who are not eligible for the current programs.</p><p>Officials estimate that about 5,300 children in Sonoma County have no medical insurance because their parents are unaware of program eligibility or find it too confusing. About 1,500 children are not eligible because their parents lack proper U.S. residency documentation and another 1,200 can't qualify because their parents earn too much to be eligible for public health assistance.</p><p>Scardaci said Cliff Coates, former chief executive officer of Sutter Medical Center, has been selected as manager of the Healthy Kids program's effort to negotiate contracts for medical services at Kaiser Permanente, Sutter and Santa Rosa Memorial hospitals.</p><p>Those hospitals have pledged more than $500,000 while a separate Kaiser Permanente Children's Health Plan for uninsured kids has committed about $5.2 million in services.</p><p>Efforts are under way to raise almost $1.3 million from private companies to pay for medical services for poor children. Former Health Services Director Mark Kostielney is heading solicitation efforts in the wine, high tech and real estate industries.</p><p>Sonoma County's Healthy Kids program will be modeled on established efforts in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.</p><p>Scardaci said that since May, the health department and the Redwood Community Health Coalition have had employees stationed at community clinics to help parents get their children signed up for one of the six different health care programs for uninsured kids. Until now, there was no single place to go to apply for all of the programs, Scardaci said.</p><p>"Funding will provide the glue to hold these programs together," she said.</p><p>State and local health officials view a county-supervised health care system for uninsured children as a precursor to a state-administered program.</p><p>Under one approach promoted by health care advocates, a November 2006 statewide ballot initiative would use tobacco tax money to pay for a statewide system of children's health coverage.</p><p>Even if the initiative doesn't come about, Scardaci said "we still need a system that is less confusing and seamless to the consumer and that funds the gaps in services."</p>