Health Care Demanded for Uninsured

NORTH HOLLYWOOD —  Two Los Angeles assemblymen and a cadre of health-care workers and local activists gathered on a sidewalk in front of a community clinic Tuesday to call for state and federal officials to provide health care for up to 600,000 uninsured working parents.

“Seven million Californians have no health insurance,” Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) told the small crowd. “That’s not a crisis. It’s an epidemic. The victims of this epidemic go through life one illness away from financial ruin.”

Legislation passed two weeks ago in Sacramento would extend the government-sponsored Healthy Families program--which currently covers only children--to 600,000 low-income parents. Healthy Families covers families that make too much money to qualify for Medi-Cal but are generally too poor to afford private insurance. The expanded program would cover parents whose income is up to 250% above the poverty level. That is roughly equivalent to a family of four earning $43,000 a year.

The legislation was proposed because the state has not used all the federal money available for Healthy Families. If the federal funds are not spent, they will be sent back to Washington.

“We need to seize the opportunity to provide health care to working parents who are struggling to make ends meet,” said Assemblyman Martin Gallegos (D-Baldwin Park). “The federal government is now willing to help. It would be a shame for California to turn that money away.”

To help illustrate the vast demand for health insurance among the working poor, organizers of Tuesday’s event cited a recent Times’ series that looked at the dire need for affordable housing, better city services and expanded health care in the suburban slums of the northeast Valley.

They also cited a recently released study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which concluded that expanding state Medicaid programs to provide coverage for parents increased the number of low-income children protected by health insurance.

Despite Hertzberg’s and Gallegos’ optimism that Democratic Gov. Gray Davis will sign the legislation, several hurdles remain.

The federal government pays for two-thirds of the cost of Healthy Families, but the state must cover the remaining $128 million. Health-care advocates say it is unclear whether the state’s share is available in the budget.

The federal government must also approve the expansion.

Davis has until Sept. 30 to reach a decision.

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Anna Soto of North Hollywood said that neither her husband, a janitor, nor his family receives health insurance.

She enrolled her two children in the Healthy Families program after a worker from the Valley Community Clinic knocked on her door and signed her up.

She said that although she is grateful that her children are covered, she still worries about herself and her husband. She recently discovered she has breast cancer and is waiting for an appointment for surgery. She doesn’t know how she will pay for it.

“Please approve this for the parents,” she pleaded in Spanish into TV cameras. “Because there is no insurance for the parents.”

Debi Rodriguez of Sun Valley said her husband’s employer pays for 50% of his health insurance, but the family simply cannot afford to insure the parents and five children and still have sufficient money to live on.

She said that having her children enrolled in Healthy Families is a huge relief and that she would always put them before herself, but she still worries about what will happen to her children if she gets sick.

When her children were younger and she was a single working mother without health insurance, she said, she got a cyst. She became so sick and feverish that she could barely care for them. The experience was terrifying

“I had a 4- and a 1-year-old,” she said. “They can’t look after you, and God forbid you turn your back on them.”

“Getting health care for us too would be a tremendous relief,” she said. “If we could just get the maintenance to prevent the huge costs.”