California has saved millions of children from losing health insurance now that legislation is in effect to protect those under five on the state's Medicaid program.
Millions of Americans saw their health insurance stripped away when pandemic era rules ensuring Medicaid continuous coverage ended, and that included millions of children alone within the state of California.
Many of these patients lost health care due to procedural errors, like missing a deadline to reapply or having an incorrect address on file.
But now California has secured funding to protect the state's Medicaid program, or Medi-Cal, for zero- to five-year-olds.
Assemblymember Tasha Boerner pushed to get rid of the extra hurdles for these children on Medicaid to keep getting health care coverage. Currently, 92 percent of those denied coverage, since continuous enrollment ended, lost their health care over procedural errors, a third of them being children.
"Thousands of children in California are at risk of being disenrolled over clerical errors. Parents are taking their children to doctor appointments only to find out that their child is no longer covered by Medi-Cal. These are families who likely have other challenges in their lives, and I am happy that as a state we are ensuring they have access to health care," said Assemblymember Tasha Boerner in a statement.
According to Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, some of the largest medical bills families are likely to face come in the first five years of a child's life, and they can often be recurring expenses.
"Ensuring California's Medicaid recipients will get access to assistance for newborns up until five years of age is pivotal to not just the medical stability of these families but their financial security, as well," Beene told Newsweek.
"Having coverage makes those significant and often charges more manageable to take on, and in our current inflated consumer marketplace, every dollar that can be saved on medical expenses could mean the difference between these families being able to afford or not afford essential daily items."
Chris Fong, a Medicare specialist and the CEO of Smile Insurance Group, said securing funding for health care at these ages will make sure children receive continuous and undisputed care during some of their most formative years.
"This security net ensures that these children can continue to get their needed vaccinations, checkups, and sick visits," Fong told Newsweek. "History tells us the lack of Medi-Cal coverage can mean the difference between life and death."
Back in the 1800s, child mortality before age 5 was more than 400 deaths per 1,000 children, Fong said. But once we saw advancements in modern medicine and child health care, there's been significant progress, especially since Medicaid went into effect in 1965.
"We now sit at approximately 7 deaths per 1,000 for children under the age of 5," Fong said. "This is more of a national crisis that has been magnified through the unwinding of Medicaid coverage. People did not need to worry about losing Medi-Cal due to paperwork during the pandemic years, which was important for many reasons.
"But the unwinding of Medicaid has now caused people across the country to lose their ever-important Medicaid coverage."
Fong added that California has one of the more complex Medicaid programs and social programs of most states, contributing to the clerical errors that lead to residents losing their insurance.
"The complexity of which program applicants qualify for causes backlog and delay in the approval process," Fong said. "This problem can be solved in two ways: hire more people or simplify the process to approval."