DENVER-
Children’s health advocates want to use an army of volunteers to sign up 115,000 youngsters who qualify for Medicaid but aren’t currently enrolled, a move that could cost the state up to $100 million.
Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, acknowledged Monday that the state doesn’t have the money to pay for such a big increase, but he said the law entitles these children to be covered by Medicaid, the joint state-federal health care service for the poor.
“I may be part of the establishment but I am willing to challenge the establishment, particularly when it comes to the health care of Colorado’s children,” he said.
Under the “kids blitz” campaign, 2,000 volunteers would be trained to find children who aren’t enrolled in Medicaid and sign them up for coverage, Hagedorn said.
He said an estimated 175,000 children are without insurance in Colorado, 115,000 of whom are eligible for Medicaid and about 13,000 of whom qualify for the state’s Child Health Plan Plus, a low-cost insurance program.
Currently, a family of four earning $20,000 or less qualifies for Medicaid while a family earning between $20,000 and $40,000 would qualify for the state plan. The rest of the estimated 47,000 children don’t qualify for state or federal insurance.
The effort to add eligible children to Medicaid would likely pick up some children for the state program too since parents fill out a joint application for both.
The state could have about $13 million more to spend in next year’s budget that could potentially cover some of those children, but only because fewer people were enrolled in Medicaid this year than expected.
Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, the chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said that could be because the economy is improving and more people are finding jobs. However, he thinks it’s likely that there still young parents who haven’t enrolled their children in Medicaid because they sometimes feel “invincible.”
The budget committee is planning to use that $13 million in savings to pay for an increase in the judicial department. If a lot of new children are signed up for Medicaid, Tapia said, the state would probably have to tap reserve funds set aside for specific projects such as long-term education needs or capital construction.
Hagedorn said the state’s welfare computer system—blamed for causing backlog of nearly 30,000 cases when it went online in 2004—is partly responsible for the decrease in Medicaid enrollment. He said only 10 people can be approved each day under the system.
In addition to signing up children who are already eligible for Medicaid, Hagedorn said he would introduce a bill that would raise the income limits for both Medicaid and the children’s plan to the maximum levels allowed under state law—$23,000 for a family of four under Medicaid and up to $60,000 under the state plan. He said that would leave 5,000 to 7,000 children without insurance.
It’s not known yet how much the expansion would cost the state.
The bill and campaign are part of a plan to make sure all Colorado’s children have health insurance by 2010. They came out of a coalition of health care and policy groups organized by the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved.
Separately, a 24-member commission created by state lawmakers last year is also studying how to ensure access to affordable health care coverage for all Coloradans. Their recommendations are expected this fall.
Rep. Anne McGihon, D-Denver,—who will co-sponsor the Hagedorn bill—said lawmakers should do everything they can to cover children under the existing law while the health care commission studies what else do.
