California Coverage

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. 

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)

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

The Heathy Families transition started Jan. 1, moving 197,000 children to Medi-Cal managed care plans. So far, according to DHCS officials, the telephone complaint hotline has been pretty quiet. "That's what we're trying to assess right now," said Kristen Golden Testa, director of the California Health Program for The Children's Partnership. She said several provider groups are conducting surveys of their members to see what providers are experiencing, and that data hasn't come in yet. "I'm not sure I would rely on the call center and complaint lines because on the ground is where we'll hear it," she said. 

Download the full 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.

The Children's Partnership joins the coalition of California health advocates and providers calling on Governor Brown and the Legislature to renew a critical revenue source -- a Managed Care Organization (MCO) assessment that could raise approximately $350 million per year --- to address the health care needs of children.

Download 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. 

California Watch

As 870,000 children are moved from the Healthy Families Program to Medi-Cal beginning January 1, 2013, children's advocates express concern about children having access to care. "Our worry is that there seems to be an intention to proceed with these transitions without that certainty that the doctors will be there to meet all these kids," said Kathleen Hamilton, director of governmental affairs with the Children's Partnership.

Download the full article. (PDF)

According to a new report by the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families, the rate of uninsured children in California declined 1.5 percent between 2009 and 2011, which ranks the state 12th in the nation for the decline in the child uninsured rate. 

“This reduction in uninsured children is fantastic news for our state’s children and families, said Wendy Lazarus, Founder and Co-President of The Children’s Partnership. “With the implementation of health care reform just around the corner and our state’s commitment to successfully transition nearly 900,000 children from Healthy Families to Medi-Cal, it is finally within our reach to ensure that every child in California receives high quality health coverage.”

Read more about the effort to insure all of California's children in the joint press release here.