Travis County Commissioners Court
August 8, 2006
Item 35
35. Consider and take appropriate action on request for the following: printing of fliers to inform eligible Travis County residents about the Texas benefits event on August 26, 2006 to increase enrollment in the children's health insurance program (chip) and other Texas benefits in partnership with insure-a-kid, children's defense fund Texas, Travis County legislative delegation, city of Austin and Travis County; and. Other actions to increase participation in the Texas benefits event.
>> good morning, judge and economics. Dan smith -- judge and economics, dan smith with the judge. Here with me today is [indiscernible] spelce of insure a kid. Also representing anne winkler much the children's defense fund of Texas. One of our committee members is here as well, christie garvey, who is the communications community relations manager. Over the last six weeks, realities from insure a kid, children's defense fund of Travis County, [indiscernible] city of Austin, health care network, Travis County have met to initiate an effort to plan a Texas benefits events and -- in partnership with the Texas health and human services commission. The Texas access alliance. Some of you may know that Travis County and hays county are pilot counties for the new integrated eligibility system. That system has not effectively met the needs of eligible families in Travis County. As a result -- and throughout the state of Texas by the way. As a result benefit events are being held all over the state to give families a chance to re-enroll children and families who have been dropped from health insurance coverage and to enroll those eligible families and children who currently do not have health insurance. Kit is here to give some comments about the event and its purpose.
>> thank you. As dan mentioned, back in January, the state launched its pilot program in travis and hays county of -- beginning what is called integrated eligibility. And that means now a family can apply for all Texas benefits, not only children's health insurance, but tanif, food stamps, long term care in a new system. Its applications are now made available on the web, over the phone, or they can continue to go to -- to one of the state offices. This function has been privatized to -- to the Texas access alliance. The company's acensure, calling themselves the Texas access alliance, since this we have seen dramatic increases in our enrollment of children in particular of chip and children's medicaid. Insure a kid, our mission is to increase access to health care. So we are particularly focusing on -- on the piece of chip and children's medicaid. Other entities are impacted, food stamps, enrollment has dropped as tanf. This event that we are having in Travis County will be comprehensive and will address all programs offered by the state. But as I said, we at insure a kid are mainly concerned about those enrolled in health insurance. If you look at one of the charts that we provided knew the handout, provided you in the handout, in January of 2005 to may of 2005, in a five-month period, we increased our chip and children's medicaid enrollment, but -- by almost 3800 children. In that same five-month period, in 2006, we lost almost 9,000 children in -- in the two programs. And that's a dramatic loss. When you think about the children born every day, that are eligible for medicaid and our enrollments are plummeting. This is what we are concerned about and are going to make an active effort to not only as dan said outreach to those that don't have health insurance and maybe have never applied for these programs, but to really get to those families that have lost their coverage and ask them to reapply around see if we can't problem solve what happen understand the system. Happened in the system. At this benefit affair we have been assured that hhsc, the health and human services commission and the Texas access alliance will have numerous individuals there to look up the cases of families and problem solve what's going on with them. And to do some redetermination. So this is isn't just insure a kid and the children's defense fund setting up a table and submitting applications. This will be having commission staff there and actively problem solving and answering questions of our clients, so that we can increase the enrollment in these programs.
>> how can we help?
>> you can help by -- by printing 15,000 fliers, that we will distribute throughout the community. We are also working with aisd to -- to distribute fliers in target schools and I'm contacting the other Travis County districts to do the same. We will work with -- with the after school partnership that just taught to get some fliers -- that just talked to get some fliers out, east side story. You have an open enrollment period, we really want a mass flier. We are talking with the seton health plan, who had the chip enrolls over this time period. They are going to provide a list of disenrolled families that we will send fliers to to get them to come out.
>> [indiscernible] gave us a list of nine specific requests.
>> these are the nine place that's we are going to distribute the 15,000 fliers that you are printing. We are also asking other folks to print fliers as well. We also need -- would like to have dan's participation on our planning committee. Until we get to August 26th, like you said, there's a delegation of the legislators, staffers, folks from my office and from the children's defense fund planning the event. Then as you can see in the draft of the flier, we would like to -- to list you as an official sponsor of the event.
>> the 15,000 fliers, if we do those, this is how they would be distributed.
>> yes, sir.
>> other public employers basically.
>> yes.
>> bilingual judge, on the other side is spanish.
>> yes.
>> the other partners are contributing other things.
>> yes.
>> exactly. They are also contributing fliers or space or different things.
>> we have done this before.
>> yes, sir.
>> did we do 15,000 last time?
>> yes, sir.
>> issues, questions?
>> when you -- move approval of the list we have been provided.
>> second.
>> setting out ways that Travis County can help the effort. This is for Travis County children basically.
>> yes.
>> okay. Discussion? Any reason why we should not vote for this motion?
>> no reason at all.
>> in that case, all in favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
>> let me just add one thing. The city of Austin has agreed to contribute the space at the convention center, 45,000 square feet for the event. And barbara smith and Commissioner Daugherty's office has agreed to -- to volunteer in this effort as well.
>> good partners as usual. Thank you all.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 8, 2006 8:14 PM