Expanding Coverage

Key Fact

More than 20 percent of Californians have no health insurance.

Source: "Snapshot: California's Uninsured, 2009," California HealthCare Foundation.

The passage of national health reform was an important step toward achieving coverage for all Californians. We must now begin the equally important work of implementing this historic legislation — so that millions of currently uninsured people can get the coverage they need to take care of themselves and their families.  

In this landscape, the Foundation has a new emphasis on providing technical assistance to state and local policymakers around the Medi-Cal waiver and Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA); and educating key stakeholders on opportunities created by health reform.

Supporting Local Approaches

As of October 2011, almost 215,000 low-income Californians are receiving care through county LIHPs.  To leverage our previous investments in planning grants, we are now helping counties implement LIHPs in a variety of ways, which include: developing information technology systems needed to link county systems and community clinical providers, creating systems to ensure clinical quality improvement and the provision of medical home services and supporting local campaigns to increase enrollment and retention.

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Modernizing Enrollment

To ensure that California can successfully implement heath reform, the Foundation is helping state policymakers obtain advice and solutions from experts to answer critical questions.

A key strategy to achieve successful implementation is for the Foundation to provide resources so that state policymakers can receive technical assistance from expert consultants to answer critical implementation questions related to the expansion of public programs.

In May 2010, the Foundation provided support to help meet the state’s short-term healthcare reform technical assistance needs.  We are currently supporting three additional technical assistance projects to the state.

Visit our What We Fund page for information about Blue Shield of California Foundation’s open funding opportunities.

Educating Stakeholders

In order to understand how patients are currently making decisions and how clinics will need to transform in the new post-health reform landscape, the Foundation commissioned two reports in 2011 on patients’ experiences and perceptions to help inform community clinics and health centers.   

On the Cusp of Change captures how these families might take advantage of the expanded access to care provided through health reform. California’s Community Clinics and Health Centers: the Online Conversation explores the patients' perceptions of clinics and health centers, and their experience with these facilities.