Stable Coverage Benefits Healthy Kids Children. Evaluation of the Santa Clara County Children's Health Initiative In Brief #5

Launched in January 2001 by the Santa Clara County Children’s Health Initiative (CHI), the Healthy Kids program provides health insurance coverage to over 13,000 children in the county with household incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level ($62,000 for a family of four) who are ineligible for the two major state insurance programs in California, Medi-Cal and Healthy Families. The vast majority of Healthy Kids children have household incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty level, low enough to qualify them for one of the state programs, but they are ineligible for these programs because of their immigration status. This brief presents findings from two surveys of families with incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty level with a child enrolled in Healthy Kids. Families were first surveyed after their child had been enrolled for about one year. They were surveyed again after their child had been enrolled for about four years. The brief describes changes in children’s medical care and other outcomes between these two surveys— that is, during the most recent three years that they had stable Healthy Kids coverage.