Wendy Lazarus

Santa Monica, CA - Wendy Lazarus, Founder & Co-President, joins a broad coalition of health care officials and advocates for a press event in Los Angeles to urge state elected officials to move quickly to expand Medi-Cal.  If legislation to expand Medi-Cal is not signed into law in the next 6 weeks, over one million low-income, working people will be left without coverage as healthcare reform is implemented. For each month of delay, California will lose hundreds of millions of federal dollars.

From Ms. Lazarus' statement, "After decades of work to secure health coverage and care for California’s 10 million children, we are finally only 188 days away from when the doors to that coverage will open thanks to the Affordable Care Act. The Medi-Cal expansion is an indispensable piece to ensure that when families start to enroll on October 1, 1.4 million low-income parents and childless adults will not be left out. Although the Medi-Cal expansion would provide coverage for adults, it also affects millions of children." 

Download Ms. Lazarus' full statement and event press release. 

Huffington Post Blog

Wendy Lazarus outlines the main "ingredients" for succes that matter the most for kids under the ACA.  "Our collective job over the months ahead is to make good decisions on behalf of the millions of children in this country who are not at these decision-making tables but whose well-being -- and even lives -- depend on making the right choices."

Download the full piece here.

The Children''s Partnership joins a coalition of child advocates to ensure that children with autism do not lose access to critical behavioral health services after their transition from Healthy Families to Medi-Cal. “The state needs to address this urgent situation immediately and ensure children in Medi-Cal receive medically necessary behavioral health therapies,” said Wendy Lazarus, Founder & Co-President of The Children’s Partnership. “Because of this serious problem, the state should not move forward with any future phases of the Healthy Families transition until the issue is resolved and continuity of care can be assured.”

Download the full press release here. (pdf)

Chico News & Review

Read the full article here. 

Lamorinda Weekly

Wendy Lazarus describes the lack of access to dental care for children in Medi-Cal. 

Download the full article here.

Capitol Weekly

Wendy Lazarus urges California's Health Benefit Exchange to deliver a "first-class consumer experience," as we count down to the opening of Covered California and enrollment for health insurance under the ACA. 

Download the full opinion piece here.

California Healthline

"California's Medi-Cal dental system is already struggling to serve children and is unprepared for what's to come," said Wendy Lazarus, founder and co-president of The Children's Partnership. "California's kids deserve real access to quality dental care -- not a false promise of it," Lazarus said in a statement accompanying the recent issue brief, "Fix Medi-Cal Dental Coverage: Half of California's Kids Depend On It."

Download the full article here.

Huffington Post

Recent changes affecting California's dental care system could worsen access to dental care for hundreds of thousands of children.  In this blog, Wendy Lazarus, Founder and Co-President of The Children's Partnership lays out an action plan to strengthen Medi-Cal's dental program for children. "The challenges laid out provide the opportunity for California to strengthen the system for everyone. It will require a lot of cooperation and political will to make these changes. TCP calls on the governor, legislators, and the public to ensure that California's most vulnerable kids will not be lost in the shuffle and left without the dental care they need," says Lazarus.

Our latest report on the dental crisis is available here. 

DrBicuspid.com

The Children's Partnership (TCP) has released an issue brief and action plan addressing the challenges Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program, faces in providing dental care to children in the state. The issue brief also stresses the impact that newly enrolled children will have on the state's strained dental care system.

Download the article here.

The Governor has jumpstarted the New Year well by solidifying the state’s newfound fiscal stability and opening the door to new opportunities to shore up and strengthen programs for California’s children and families. A statement from Wendy Lazarus, Founder and Co-President of The Children’s Partnership, was released today in response to the Governor’s Budget announcement. 

Read the full statement here.

California plans to start moving children from the Healthy Families Program into Medi-Cal on January 1. The Children's Partnership joins other advocates to highlight the importance of assuring children’s health care is not disrupted.

“The health of the 875,000 children who will move from Healthy Families to Medi-Cal, as well as the nearly 3.7 million children currently in enrolled in Medi-Cal, depends on the success of this transition. All eyes will be on the state. We and families across California are counting on state officials to track and quickly resolve any problems that arise,” said Wendy Lazarus, Founder and Co-President of The Children’s Partnership.

Download the full press release here. 

California Healthline

State health officials will go on as scheduled with the first phase of the Healthy Families transition to Medi-Cal managed care, beginning January 1, 2013. Children's health advocates say they will do everything to support that effort while still keeping a careful eye on its progress.

"The signs are the Brown Administration will proceed with this, so the attention has to be on how to monitor what's happening," says Wendy Lazrus, founder and co-president of The Children's Partnership.

Download the article with her full comments here. 

Education Week

Wendy Lazarus describes the need for schools and organizations to prioritize bridging the gap between school and home in order "to have parents become both digitally literate and more engaged in their children's education," in this article about schools using social networking to involve parents. 

Download here (PDF).

Huffington Post

As gaming becomes more social, it is expanding into parts of society once seen as untouched by video games. The largest of these groups is women, who make up 55 percent of social gamers on average. Women are also more likely than men to make charitable contributions, care about youth-related causes, and purchase virtual goods in social games. 

The kinds of in-game donations and virtual goods that helped fund disaster relief in Haiti and Japan are a natural next step for helping our own children. The potential is enormous for both gaming companies and children. In 2011, the virtual goods industry saw $2.3 billion in US sales. In a market that big, there is certainly room for many causes. The Children's Partnership is working to make sure that child poverty is one of them.

Download the full article.

By Wendy Lazarus | September 2012

The report includes the results of a yearlong study of the $25.1 billion digital game industry and provides a focused look at the demographics of gamers, trends in social gaming and virtual goods, and the potential of cause partnerships to benefit child health and education.

Download the full report.

Huffington Post

Senator Padilla's legislation is a forward-looking step that begins to address the state's dental workforce issues and will fulfill the promise of the Affordable Care Act by helping kids get the dental care they so rightfully deserve. It can also be a beacon to other states and give hope to the millions of children living across the United States who today get no dental care whatsoever.

Download the full article.

Santa Monica, CA, June 28, 2012 -- "America’s children won today," declared Wendy Lazarus, Founder and Co-Presdient of The Children's Partnership. "By upholding the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Supreme Court has sided with making health coverage a reality for children across the United States. Nearly all of the nation’s 75 million children have already benefited or will soon benefit from the ACA. As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, millions of parents will continue to have the peace of mind that comes from knowing that their children can get health services when they need them. Now, as we put this historic decision behind us, we will work with public and private sector leaders to implement the ACA effectively so it meets its potential to give kids a healthy start in life." 

Read the full statement here.

California Healthline

Download article here.

The California Assembly Health Committee voted 19-0 in support of SB 694, authorizing a study to test new workforce models with the goal of increasing access to dental care for California's children. In a press statement, Wendy Lazarus praised this leadership. "This bi-partisan vote builds upon the positive Senate action earlier this year and brings children a step closer to having something to smile about."

KQED

Mercury News

"Medi-Cal already faces serious challenges in providing access for 3.5 million kids served by it today, and it's straining to serve them well," said Wendy Lazarus, founder and co-president of The Children's Partnership, which outlined demands in a letter co-signed by 64 groups. "But by putting added pressure on a very fragile Medi-Cal system now, the plan will endanger access to care for as many as 4.5 million kids."

Download article here.

Santa Monica, CA, June 21, 2012 -- "The Governor and Legislative leaders have struck a short-sighted deal that unnecessarily puts the health of California children at risk," said Wendy Lazarus. "While we understand that hard budget choices had to be made, those choices should not fall on the backs of our children and their ability to get the care they need to stay healthy and succeed in life." Ms. Lazarus joins a broad coalition of advocates who supported an alternative to today's state budget deal. See this Capitol Weekly piece for The Children's Partnership full position on this issue.

Download a PDF of the Power Point Presentation

Calitics

Wendy Lazarus, Founder and Co-President, on a common-sense, alternative approach to the Healthy Families shift to Medi-Cal.

Download op-ed here.