Iowa wants to be the first state to have all its children covered by health insurance.
Gov. Chet Culver stated his goal during a conference call today with Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based child advocacy group.
That goal could be hindered due to a $13.4 million shortfall in the federal government's funding of health insurance programs in Iowa.
Edelman's group is working to get Congress to provide health insurance for the 9 million children nationwide who are uninsured, including about 52,000 in Iowa.
"It's a right and smart investment," she said.
Legislation to cover the shortfall for Iowa and 13 other states was attached to a bill to provide more money for U.S. troops in Iraq, which President Bush pledged to veto.
In the meantime, Culver has asked Kevin Concannon, director of the Iowa Department of Human Services, to come up with a way to prevent 13,000 Iowa children from losing coverage due to the federal shortfall.
About 30,000 uninsured Iowa children qualify for the state's Hawk-i or Medicaid programs, based on family incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
Culver said he would like to enroll 7,500 children annually for the next four years.
Offering families who earn up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level a chance to buy into health insurance would help cover the remaining 22,000 children.
According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Iowa ranks eighth nationally in the percentage of children uninsured. About 200,000 Iowa children are in state programs, with 7.3 percent uninsured.
Vermont ranks first, with only 4.4 percent of children uninsured.
Iowa is second to Minnesota in percentage of total population uninsured, at 8.6 percent, compared to 15.9 percent nationwide.
Edelman said about 3 percent of Iowa's uninsured children are non-citizens who are ineligible for Iowa's programs. The Children's Defense Fund would like all children living in Iowa and elsewhere, regardless of their legal status, to have health insurance, she said.
Culver's support of the recent cigarette tax increase will result in an additional $9 million for children's health insurance, as well as $7.5 million to expand mental health insurance coverage and $3 million for free clinics and rural health clinics that will assist children.
For the first time since the early 1990s, funding also has been set aside to add about 7,500 low-income parents to state health insurance programs, Concannon said.
About 200,000 Iowa adults are uninsured.
Events this week
As part of "Cover the Uninsured Week," the University of Iowa is offering the following:
* A health clinic for uninsured schoolchildren and their siblings, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, April 26, at Horace Mann Elementary, 521 N. Dodge St. in Iowa City. UI medical, nursing and dental faculty, residents and staff, and Iowa City Community School District personnel will offer the clinic, which is part of "Healthy Kids Community Care," a pilot project of the school district in partnership with the UI, Mercy Iowa City, United Way of Johnson County, Johnson County Public Health and other community-based organizations.
* Vision screenings for children from 10 a.m. to noon Friday, April 27, at St. Thomas More Church, 405 N. Riverside Drive, Iowa City. The screenings are provided by "Coming To Your Senses," a joint vision-screening project of the UI Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and the Lions Clubs of Iowa. The event is free and open to the public.
* "Coming to Your Senses" free vision screenings for children from 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 28, at the Iowa Children's Museum at the Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville. UI medical students also will be available to provide informational materials on hawk-i, which provides health care coverage for Iowa children from families with limited incomes. The student-led public awareness effort is supported by a grant from the Association of American Medical Colleges. Both the vision screenings and informational materials are free and open to the public.
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