Contra Costa County, Calif., Announces Plans to Enroll Uninsured Children

Officials in California's Contra Costa County announced on Oct. 23 a $1.04 million plan to enroll all of the county's 10,000 uninsured children in Medi-Cal or Healthy Families, the state's CHIP, by the end of 2001, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Under the plan, health assistance centers in school districts and local health clinics will team up to inform parents about the programs. Language barriers, women moving from welfare to work and a lengthy application form are "major obstacles" to enrolling children, the Chronicle reports. But County Board of Supervisors Chair Donna Gerber said, "We're going to make sure that children in Contra Costa get health care." While the county's Health and Employment and Human Services programs will cover the majority of the plan's cost, eight private foundations will donate 32% of the cost. The foundations include Kaiser Permanente, John Muir/Mount Diabolo Community Health Benefit Corp., San Francisco Foundation, McKesson HBOC Foundation, East Bay Community Foundation, the Lowell Berry Foundation, Y & H Soda Foundation and the Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation (Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 10/24).