California is leading the way in implementing the Affordable Care Act. Health care reform is already helping millions of California children and their families. As valuable as the existing reforms have already been for millions of children, more improvements are just around the corner for kids in 2014. When the California Health Benefit Exchange is “open for business” January 1, 2014, there will finally be coverage for kids whose families are not able to afford it today. Families will have a “one-stop shop” where they can compare, apply, and enroll in plans that best suit their needs. All children will be entitled to dental coverage, an especially valuable change because dental problems are the most common unmet health need kids face today. Plus, the ACA strengthens and provides additional funding for California’s Medi-Cal programs already in place. 

To find the latest updates on the development of the California Health Benefits Exchange, please visit: http://www.healthexchange.ca.gov

Implementation Resources:

• Preserving Immediate Enrollment for Children under the New Health Coverage Enrollment System
  

  Recommendations on how to preserve children’s ability to get immediate or “accelerated” enrollment (AE) in Medi-Cal.

• The Affordable Care Act: Top 11 Benefits for California Children and Youth
• Using Express Lane and Related Strategies to Pre-enroll Large Numbers of Uninsured
  Recommendations to California policymakers responsible for designing eligibility and enrollment under the ACA.

• CHDP Gateway: Maximizing Its Potential for Children as the Affordable Care Act Is Implemented 
  A memorandum to California policymakers regarding maximizing access to health care for children through the CHDP Gateway under ACA.

• Building A Consumer-Driven Eligibility, Enrollment, and Renewal System: Essential Design Features for Effective Health Reform in California
  This roadmap lays out the four design features (and practical recommendations for action within each) necessary to enroll almost 4 million Californians newly eligible for subsidized health coverage under health reform, in addition to assisting the over 8 million already receiving such coverage.

• SHOP TALK: Recommendations for Ensuring Best Health Coverage Outcomes For Children and Families
  This paper provides recommendations to the California Health Benefit Exchange Board (HBEX) as it proceeds with the implementation of the SHOP program for small employers. These recommendations are aimed at ensuring that families covered through SHOP have access to and understand the best affordable care available for children.

• Easy, Efficient, and Real-Time (EER): A Framework for a First-Class Health Insurance Enrollment Experience in California
  Lays out, step by step, how eligibility, enrollment, and retention should work for consumers so that California can meet the expectations of the Affordable Care Act.

• A Step-by-Step Guide to Health Insurance Enrollment in California
  A visual companion piece to Easy, Efficient, Real-Time (EER): A Framework for a First-Class Health Insurance Enrollment Experience in California walks the viewer through an individual's ideal enrollment experience.

• Creating California's "No Wrong Door" for Health Coverage: Recommendations from Consumer Advocates
  Provides the consumer perspective on the structural issues involved in creating the ideal enrollment system in California