Children First for Oregon

State extends health care to 20,000 kids

By Bill Graves, The Oregonian

December 10, 2009, 6:35PM

An additional 20,000 children have health insurance and access to health care under Oregon’s initiative to insure virtually all children, Gov. Ted Kulongoski announced today.

Under a law passed this year by the Legislature, Oregon is using a 1 percent tax on health insurer premiums to expand health care to 80,000 more children under age 18. Once that happens, about 95 percent of Oregon’s children will be insured. That is about as high a percentage as any state has achieved given that some families move or elude social outreach workers, state officials say.

The state has extended health insurance to 20,000 children since the governor signed the Healthy Kids Plan into law in August. State leaders hope to provide insurance for another 60,000 children by 2010.

“Many parents are struggling in this difficult economy,” Kulongoski said in a prepared statement. “One thing they don’t have to worry about is how to get their children the health care they need.”

The state has been enrolling uninsured children in the Oregon Health Plan who come from families with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

Beginning in January, the state will subsidize on a sliding scale insurance for children from families with incomes up to 300 percent of the poverty level – $66,000 for a family of four. Children whose parents lack employer-sponsored insurance will have access to a new state-sponsored private insurance plan called Healthy KidsConnect.