1. Welcome to Two New Corporate Partners! * H & R Block will hang our posters in all their Oahu offices and distribute 60,000 Hawaii Covering Kids flyers to customers. The activity started as a national Covering Kids effort and we are grateful to Melloney Brown and Uluwehi Sai for their incredible local support to help Hawaii's children and families. This H & R Block outreach will also extend to the Neighbor Islands through Pam Arant, district manager for Hawaii and Maui, and our pilot projects. * Meadow Gold Dairies printed health insurance information and our hotline numbers on 15,000 milk cartons and 40,000 iced tea cartons in December and January. Their primary customers are on the islands of Oahu and Kauai and we especially appreciate the extraordinary work done by Jeanne Kanai, Customer Relations Director, to promote kids health insurance in Hawaii. 2. More Outreach! Thanks to Dee Helber and DOE Special Services: all new student packets distributed in 2002-2003 by public schools statewide will include a Hawaii Covering Kids flyer. We plan to reach parents and guardians of kindergarten children as well as other incoming students. 3. New Initiative Launches Email Updates Hawaii Together, a coalition of community leaders, service providers, government representatives and others, was formed to proactively address health and human service needs in our state at this critical time. Their subscriber list and web site provide frequently updated data, assessments of the health and human services needs in Hawaii, resources for families and service providers, and a discussion forum. For more information, visit their web site at http://hawaiitogether.hawaii.edu. 4. Study Finds Kids on Medicaid May Get Poorer Dental Care A study published in the January issue of the American Journal of Public Health finds that kids on Medicaid may get poorer dental care. This study was led by a team from University of North Carolina focusing upon seventy-seven parents with children on Medicaid in North Carolina. The focus of this study was to understand the experiences and perceptions of a diverse group of caregivers concerning dental care and their Medicaid insured children. Some of the barriers sited were difficulty finding a provider and scheduling appointments, demeaning interactions with office staff and excessive wait times. Many of these barriers discourage caretakers from taking children to the dentist. These and other policies and barriers lead to fewer than one of every five children enrolled in Medicaid using preventive services in a given year. Minority participants, particularly African Americans, felt they were discriminated against based on race. The article's abstract (Volume 92 Number 1) is free at http://www.ajph.org/ 5. Commonwealth Fund Looks at New York Family Health Plus Program The Commonwealth Fund has published a report which looks at New York Family Health Plus Program. By evaluating the new health insurance plan for low-income families in New York, the Commonwealth Fund has cited various areas that need to be addressed in order for the program to work. Family Health Plus Program began in October 2001 and aims to reach families who are at or below 150% of the Federal Poverty Level. This program is in addition to Medicaid and Child Health Plus. The authors of the study believe that this program may suffer if "the state does not simplify enrollment and promote greater coordination with other health insurance programs, especially Medicaid and Child Health Plus." Other states with programs such as New York's were looked at in order to gain insight and provide important lessons. Simplification in program enrollment by establishing a streamlined application for all public health insurance programs is highlighted. Allowing applications to be mailed is also essential in enrollment simplification. If applications are available online and applicants are screened for various programs, program coordination is possible. The report by Commonwealth Fund hopes to direct New York in the right direction in implementing Family Health Plus and serve as a model for other public health insurance programs. Click here for more information: Implementing New York's Family Health Plus Program: Lessons From Other States 6. Addendum to "Children's Health under Medicaid" Now Available National Health Law Program (NHeLP) has published an addendum to the 1998 edition of "Children's Health Under Medicaid - A National Review of EPSDT." The addendum supplements the 1994-1996 chartbook and presents Form-416 data from fiscal years 1997 and 1998. Copies are available for $15 with purchase of original 1998 chartbook ($35). If you want to purchase the update solely, the charge is $25. A past purchase of the 1998 EPSDT chartbook by your organization qualifies you for the discount $15 price. To order, contact NHeLP at 310.204.6010, fax 310.204.0891, or email nhelp@healthlaw.org