More than 162,000 eligible children are at risk of falling through safety net and losing hope of needed health coverage.

My two children have received excellent public health benefits in San Francisco since before they were born. I qualified for no-cost Medi-Cal during both pregnancies though my partner and I were both self-employed. After my children were born, this coverage has allowed me to focus on taking care of our kids - now ages 5 and 2.5 - rather than get a job just for the healthcare benefits.

I moved back to Tustin, CA in December 2006 after leaving a man who had been abusive and a marriage that was falling apart. While I was looking for work, we were on Medi-Cal but I did not want to stay on for long because I felt others needed it more than me.

Right now, approximately 763,000 kids don't have healthcare coverage -- a number that is going up each year. In fact, now 1 in 8 kids nationwide don't have healthcare coverage, many more than just last year. Despite the outcry from many Californians, the legislature just isn't getting the message that all kids need healthcare coverage.

Last Friday, Governor Schwarzenegger released a proposal for Phase 1 of “Health Care Reform” in California [visit the (temporary) website http://opr.ca.gov/temp/ for details of the plan]. Disappointingly, this first phase of health care reform omits any policy that would expand health coverage to children.

Last night, California’s Budget Conference Committee voted to support a proposal that would drop a quarter million children from health coverage by requiring children to renew their Medi-Cal coverage every six months. This proposal is called Semi-Annual Reporting.

Dear CA MomsRising.org member,

Paperwork a new hazard to California's children? Unfortunately, it could be. In an effort to cut the budget, legislators are considering a truly twisted tactic right now: Cutting eligible kids off healthcare coverage by increasing red tape. The result -- more than 471,000 children could lose their health insurance.[1]