State's Healthy Families program gets a last-minute lifeline
The program was threatened with severe budget cuts, but a $16.8-million check should keep enrollment open through June. GOP leaders today suggest $15.6 billion in cuts to school, healthcare, welfare.
Reporting from Sacramento — A move to cut off enrollment in California's healthcare program for the working poor may be averted by a last-minute infusion of money.
The California Children and Families Commission, which is funded by a portion of the tobacco tax, unanimously voted this afternoon to offer $16.8 million to the state's Healthy Families program, allowing it to continue enrolling children through the end of the fiscal year in June.
The offer comes two days before the state board that runs Healthy Families was set to vote to cap enrollment in the program, which provides medical insurance for 900,000 children whose families are slightly above the federal poverty line. The cap would put about 162,000 children on a waiting list within six months, according to estimates from the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board.
State budget: An article in some editions of Tuesday's California section on new funds to assist the state's Healthy Families program misattributed a quote about "phantom revenues that may never materialize" in a Republican spending plan. The quote was from Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), not his predecessor, Don Perata.
That board is expected to accept the commission's offer at its meeting Wednesday in Sacramento.
"If this goes through, it would be a lifeline to tens of thousands of kids who wouldn't be able to see a doctor otherwise because they don't have health insurance," said Wendy Lazarus, co-president of Children's Partnership, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group. "In this economic downturn, it is just critical that we protect kids whose parents need to turn to our state's health insurance programs because they're losing their jobs or they can't pay."
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who helped negotiate the plan, called it "a crucial step" for advocates who want to expand health coverage for children amid one of the worst financial crisis the state has faced in decades.
But the solution is only a stopgap. The Legislature remains deadlocked over how to erase a budget gap that is projected to reach $41.8 billion by mid-2010.
Republican legislative leaders, who have been under attack for not offering their own solution, this afternoon endorsed cutting $15.6 billion in funding for schools, healthcare for working-class families and welfare, reducing many of these programs nearly to the minimum levels allowed by law.
The GOP plan would also seek voter approval to take $6 billion from pots of money the electorate set aside to bolster healthcare for children and the mentally ill.
Schwarzenegger and the Democrats who hold the majority of seats in the Legislature immediately rebuffed the plan in statements issued today.
If enacted, the plan would address a little more than half of the total budget gap California is expected to develop.
But Assemblyman Mike Villines of Clovis and Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, the Republican leaders, noted that the total savings were more than either Schwarzenegger or the Democrats have spelled out so far. They also said the changes would put the state on firmer footing for future years, noting that they had proposed many of these ideas in past years but were rebuffed.
"If we had any of this in place, the problem wouldn't be as bad as it is today," Cogdill told reporters at an afternoon news conference.
Rau is a Times staff writer.
jordan.rau@latimes.com
