Healthy Kids

by San Luis Obispo County 4th District Supervisor Katcho Achadjian, Candidate for the 33rd Assembly District seat

Since February 2005, the Children’s Health Initiative of San Luis Obispo County (CHISLO) has provided health insurance to children living in San Luis Obispo County who otherwise would not be insured.

Funded in part by First 5 of San Luis Obispo County, the Healthy Kids Program is a locally developed plan that provides comprehensive health coverage to children of low and middle income families in San Luis Obispo County.

If parents can’t afford health insurance, they often forgo preventive care visits for their children. Children end up in emergency rooms or inpatient settings, burdening consumers and taxpayers with expensive emergency room care. It’s a well-known fact that for every dollar spent on preventive care, five to ten dollars are saved in future costs.

A recently released report by the Center for Community Health Studies (“Access and Utilization in Healthy Kids Programs in California: 2005-2007”) indicates that CHI’s throughout the State are providing primary and preventive health care coverage to California’s most vulnerable children. Moreover, CHI’s not only have “facilitated an overall improvement in the appropriate use of health services for children”, but also “are improving children’s use of primary and preventive services.” Locally, CHISLO enrolled 570 children in 2007 and maintains that level of service in 2009.

According to the report, “these children have been consistently less likely to visit emergency rooms and are hospitalized less frequently for shorter periods of time than Medi-Cal or Healthy Families members,” so “it may be possible for public programs to absorb some of the costs of coverage for these children, because they are relatively low users of emergency and hospital services.”

The CHI model is working in our local counties. It also can work on a State level. Efficiency can be increased by reducing administrative costs associated with the various stand-alone county entities. At the same time the risk pool would grow producing lower premium rates.

Working together, Medi-Cal, Healthy Families and Healthy Kids could provide a critical safety net to keep California children healthy, ultimately reducing costs for all.

Katcho Achadjian has been a small business owner for 31 years and has served on the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisor since 1999. In 2006, he was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the California Coastal Commission where he continues to serve as a Commissioner.

Katcho is a graduate of California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo and holds a degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in International Management. He is active in many civic community based boards including Five Cities Rotary Club, Latino Outreach Council, First Five Commission, CenCal Health and the SLO Law Enforcement Assistance Foundation.

Katcho's Assembly candidacy website can be found here.