Counseling Service Cuts Hit Special Needs Children Hard
source: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=4e3cb00cfe99292d928eccfe15...
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Counseling Service Cuts Hit Special Needs Children Hard
New America Media, News Feature, Vivian Po / Video: Jacob Simas, Posted: Mar 08, 2010
Alameda resident Kyle To is only 11, but he has been battling Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder for years. Now he has been diagnosed with non-verbal learning disabilities and Asperger’s syndrome. But To will no longer receive counseling services or a second assessment because the Healthy Families program in California, which provides low-cost insurance for children, has stopped reimbursing those services.
“I called every therapist from Oakland to San Leandro,” said his mother Emily To. but none of them is willing to accept him.”
Other parents with children with special health care needs (CSHCN) are worried that the health coverage for their children will become even more frayed after further service cuts to California’s public health care system were proposed earlier this year.
The problem is not necessarily lack of insurance. Of children with special health care needs, 96.9 percent were insured either through public or private insurance or both in 2005-2006, according to kidsdata.org, a resource website on the health and well-being of California’s children. But 35.7 percent of the children had inadequate insurance coverage.
Health professionals believe the number is even higher today because reimbursements from public health insurance plans are decreasing.
Kyle To does not qualify for Medi-Cal, California’s health insurance program for low-income families, because his father earns slightly more than the eligible income. But they also cannot afford the estimated $300 monthly premiums for private insurance.
read the rest at
www.NewAmericaMedia.org
New America Media, News Feature, Vivian Po / Video: Jacob Simas, Posted: Mar 08, 2010
Alameda resident Kyle To is only 11, but he has been battling Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder for years. Now he has been diagnosed with non-verbal learning disabilities and Asperger’s syndrome. But To will no longer receive counseling services or a second assessment because the Healthy Families program in California, which provides low-cost insurance for children, has stopped reimbursing those services.
“I called every therapist from Oakland to San Leandro,” said his mother Emily To. but none of them is willing to accept him.”
Other parents with children with special health care needs (CSHCN) are worried that the health coverage for their children will become even more frayed after further service cuts to California’s public health care system were proposed earlier this year.
The problem is not necessarily lack of insurance. Of children with special health care needs, 96.9 percent were insured either through public or private insurance or both in 2005-2006, according to kidsdata.org, a resource website on the health and well-being of California’s children. But 35.7 percent of the children had inadequate insurance coverage.
Health professionals believe the number is even higher today because reimbursements from public health insurance plans are decreasing.
Kyle To does not qualify for Medi-Cal, California’s health insurance program for low-income families, because his father earns slightly more than the eligible income. But they also cannot afford the estimated $300 monthly premiums for private insurance.
read the rest at
www.NewAmericaMedia.org
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