Cover the uninsured week focuses on enrolling children in SCHIP

Several states have held events as part of Cover the Uninsured Week, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Activities across the nation for Cover the Uninsured Week, from April 23 to April 29, included SCHIP enrollment events, seminars for business owners and town hall discussions. Business, health care and faith-based organizations, as well as education and community leaders participated in the events (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation release, 4/23). Summaries of coverage of state events appear below.

• Arizona: El Rio Health Center and Carondelet Health Network in southern Arizona will hold health fairs to encourage residents to apply for state-sponsored health coverage programs, the Arizona Daily Star reports. The fairs aim to enroll eligible people in health care programs such as Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, a state health plan for families that fall within the federal poverty guideline; Well Woman Health Check, which provides breast and cervical cancer screenings for women with no insurance and an income between 100% and 250% of the poverty level; and KidsCare, the state's version of SCHIP (Erikson, Arizona Daily Star , 4/25).
• California: Dominican Hospital and Sutter Santa Cruz each have contributed $25,000 to Healthy Kids, which provides coverage for children not eligible for the state Medi-Cal or Healthy Families programs, the Santa Cruz Sentine reports. Approximately 17% of Santa Cruz County's population is without health insurance, and because of a lack of funding, more than 100 children are on a waiting list for the program, the Sentinel reports (Gumz, Santa Cruz Sentinel , 4/23).
• Michigan: State health officials are seeking to enroll more children in MIChild, Michigan's version of SCHIP, the Detroit News reports. Several outreach efforts are being conducted through a United Way 211 hot line, the Detroit Public School system and BlueCross BlueShield of Michigan. The program currently is spending three times the amount of money on providing coverage to adults in the program than on children, according to the News (Kozlowski, Detroit News, 4/23).