Making Medi-Cal Work for Families: Keeping Children Covered
Stable health insurance coverage is necessary for the continuity of health care. With the majority of California children relying on Medi-Cal for their health coverage, continuous Medi-Cal coverage plays a critical role in children’s healthy early childhood development. Medi-Cal is also pivotal to child health equity as three-fourths of Medi-Cal children are children of color.
But Medi-Cal currently requires families to renew their eligibility every year. While a lot has been done to streamline this renewal process, too often children and families lose their Medi-Cal coverage – not because they no longer qualify but due to administrative barriers and glitches, such as not receiving renewal packets in the mail or long call wait times.
Data Brief: How Continuous Medicaid Coverage Protected California Children
A TCP brief, “Learning From the Pandemic: How Medi-Cal Continuous Coverage Protects California Kids,” demonstrates the success of the federal continuous coverage provision in keeping millions of Californians enrolled in Medi-Cal coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic and what is at stake for children and families when the protection ended in April 2023.
This brief also highlights recommendations to help the state minimize disruptions to children’s coverage, such as moving forward with the implementation of multi-year continuous Medi-Cal coverage for children ages 0-5.
Since the unwinding began, over 300,000 California kids have lost Medi-Cal.
Focus Groups: How Gaps in Coverage Impact Children and their Families
As we witness California children losing coverage as Medi-Cal annual redeterminations start up again, TCP wanted to raise parent voices to speak to what are the very real impacts of gaps in health coverage on children and their families. We commissioned Lake Research Partners to conduct 10 focus groups with over 80 parents/guardians of children of color to share their experience with what it means to be without insurance coverage – even for a short period.
Listening to families themselves advances health equity by identifying how the process can work for them, not just for the system.
Learn more in our summary slide deck.
Focus Groups: Families Share What Works and How to Fix What Does Not
As all Medi-Cal enrollees go through annual eligibility renewals for the first time in three years, the aggregate disenrollment data shows more than 306,000 children have lost coverage (June 2023-February 2024). We wanted to hear directly from families about their renewal experience during the unwinding period.
The Children’s Partnership commissioned Lake Research Partners to conduct ten focus groups of families of color and two groups with Medi-Cal enrollment assisters to hear about their renewal experiences – what worked and what needs to be fixed. These families and assisters provided pragmatic recommendations for how to make the system work better. A summary of this wealth of information can be found below.
Advocacy
Multi-Year Continuous Coverage Budget Proposal
California has adopted a multi-year continuous Medi-Cal enrollment protection for young children. This will enable children under the age of five to keep coverage without annual renewal requirements that can cause harmful health care gaps. To meet the January 2025 start date for this policy, we urge the Legislature to fully fund implementation in the 2024-25 budget.
Feedback Loop
Medi-Cal Unwinding & Renewals Restart
Monthly virtual opportunities to share your experiences with Medi-Cal renewals. Attendees can ask questions, get updates and share feedback.
Register here: https://bit.ly/RenewalFeedbackLoop
Do you work with California communities on Medi-Cal? Do you assist individuals and families with Medi-Cal enrollment and renewals? We are here for you and want to hear from you!
As Medi-Cal renewals resume, The Children’s Partnership (TCP) & the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) are hosting a feedback loop to identify and help address issues and concerns with the renewal process.
If you are a community-based organization, health care navigator, enrollment assister, community health worker/promotora, provider, or other advocate on the ground, please join us. Our virtual meetings will take place on the third Wednesday of the month at 12 p.m. PST:
• July 19
• August 16
• September 20
• October 18
• November 15
Interpretation services will be provided upon request.
Please register here: https://bit.ly/RenewalFeedbackLoop
Questions?
Contact:
Kristen Golden Testa – ktesta@childrenspartnership.org
Skyler Rosellini – rosellini@healthlaw.org
In addition, the continuous Medi-Cal coverage coalition also submitted a support letter with 60 organizations signing on.
Get Involved
Tell Gov. Newsom and the legislature to greenlight and fund continuous Medi-Cal coverage for young children. Doing so will protect the investments California already has made in Medi-Cal mental health access, early childhood development and expanded eligibility. All these depend on having the Medi-Cal insurance card.
- Send a letter to Gov. Newsom and budget advisors
- Tell your friends and fellow advocates to send a letter using this easy-to-remember link: http://bit.ly/ProtectMediCal
- Get the word out on social media using this toolkit
Don’t wait – The governor will release his revised budget by May 14, 2024!
