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)

The Children's Partnership supports SB 126 (Steinberg) which will extend the provisions of California’s Autism Insurance Mandate Law (SB 946) for an additional five years until July 1, 2019.

Download the letter of support here. 

Jenny Kattlove, Director, Strategic Health Initiatives presented at the California School Health Centers Annual Conference on March 15, 2013 in Long Beach, California.

Download the presentation slides 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)

The Children's Partnership signed-on with NHeLP and other California child advocate organizations to voice comments and concerns about California's Section 1115 Waiver Amendment Request regarding the Children's Health Insurance Program Transition to Medicaid Program. 

Download the letter here . 

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. 

The Children's Partnership submitted a letter to Governor Brown, urging his signature of SB 970 (de Leon).  SB 970 would integrate the process of applying for health coverage with public programs such as CalFresh and CalWORKS. 

California Healthline

Download article here.

Santa Monica, CA, June 27, 2012 -- "Today, California's Legislature, at the urging of Governor Brown, voted to close down the highly successful Healthy Families Program that has helped millions of kids get the health care they need over the past 15 years. The Children's Partnership and 70 other organizations had strongly opposed the close down of Healthy Families which today provides health care to nearly 900,000 children, favoring a phased transition that would protect children's health," says Wendy Lazarus. 

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.

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.

California Healthline

Advocates Hope ACA Will Knit Children's Patchwork