Healthy Families provides low cost insurance for children and teens

I don’t write enough about resources for struggling families, and while there are plenty in Encino, there are many more in adjacent Van Nuys. So here is a useful state resource: Healthy Families.

This is a low cost insurance for children and teens in California up to the age of 19. It provides health, dental and vision coverage to children who do not have insurance and whose families earn too much to qualify for free Medi-Cal. That means if you have kids and are low-income and have no insurance, you should check it out. For example if you are a single mother earning $40K with 2 children, you would qualify for Healthy Families. You would pay a monthly premium between $4 to $24 for each child, up to a maximum of $72 for all children in a family enrolled in Healthy Families. Income guidelines here (these are monthly figures).

In practice, however, not enough vulnerable families are enrolling in Healthy Families. Why aren’t they? Because it’s way too difficult!

In the past, too few families even knew about it. The state website is here and it’s confusing (use the links on the left). Not enough families have enrolled, so we are losing federal funding. In the past you could enroll with the help of a certified application assistant, but I don’t know how hard that is now, because their funding was cut by former governor Schwarzenegger. Governor Brown’s budget means higher premiums and co-pays, but Healthy Families is still worthwhile if you can get your children enrolled.

If you wish to investigate, I recommend that you start with the website (here) of the non-profit Foundation for Health Coverage Education. You can try the Eligibility Quiz or get help on the phone. I think they are great but if you want to know more about who they are, research them on Wikipedia (here) and their Facebook page (here).

FYI, Healthy Families is California’s name for the federal program called State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). It currently covers around 1 million children in California. Let us hope it survives.