Budget woes threaten local children's health insurance program ...

by The Bakersfield Californian

By Steven Mayer, The Bakersfield Californian

Jan. 7–Nearly 1,500 “gap kids” in Kern County could be left without health insurance next year if threatened funding and a health care administrator are not replaced locally.

First 5 Kern Interim Executive Director Larry Rhoades and Jan Hefner, director of the Children’s Health Initiative of Kern County, said funding from private foundations and grants is drying up, even as government-funded assistance programs are being squeezed by California’s ongoing fiscal crisis.

The biggest losers could be those age 6 to 18 whose families earn too much money to qualify for Medi-Cal but too little to afford private health insurance coverage.

“They are the kids who don’t qualify for public assistance,” Rhoades said Wednesday. “They are gap kids.”

First 5 Kern’s tobacco tax-funded efforts will continue to cover children in this income gap from birth to age 5, Rhoades said. But First 5 is restricted in what it can do for older children.

And he’s worried that elementary-age children and older youngsters will be left with little or no medical coverage.

The problem is twofold, he said. The first is the loss of dollars, mostly from private foundations, grants and donated services that has allowed Healthy Kids Kern County to fill the gap in coverage.

More than 1,000 Kern children are covered, and nearly 500 others are on a waiting list in hopes of receiving coverage for urgent care, prescriptions, vision and other components of health care.

The second problem is this: Heath Net of California Inc. gave notice last year that it plans to stop administering health care for children in the Healthy Kids program.

“This is in no way an indictment of Health Net,” Rhoades said. “They have done a great job for us and they have donated 170 slots per year for kids age 6 to 18.”

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