Utah Health Matters E-Newsletter:  Special Multicultural Health Edition

     It was a decent Session for communities impacted by health disparities, though trouble may be on the horizon. Following are highlights related to reducing health disparities from the Legislative Session.  Starting with the good news…

 

     CHIP: Full funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program:   This means CHIP will be open to new enrollment on July 1, 2007. Given the woeful under-enrollment of communities of color in medical assistance programs, this is great news. Now the trick is to make sure that all communities make full use of this wonderful program—before it runs out of money. 

      HB437: Defeat of HB437, Limitation on Government Benefits to 'Aliens' Unlawfully Present by Rep. Herrod.  The bill was intended to send an elaborate hate message to immigrants.  If codifying hate was not reason enough to oppose this bill, the expense of implementing it is.  Similar statutes are known to cost states much more than they save because of the added bureaucratic costs of excluding immigrants that were never qualifying for or using the public programs in the first place. Despite its defeat, there was substantial support for the bill in the legislature.  So it will likely be back with a vengeance next year.  We would do best to learn from the problems similar provisions have caused in states such as Colorado. Also, Idaho just passed a similar provision.

      Medicaid: Legislators finally embraced the Medicaid Preferred Drug List and, even better, they agreed to re-invest the savings in Medicaid reimbursement rates for providers (physicians and dentists). Our hope is that more competitive provider rates will improve access to preventive care. Medicaid dental and vision services were restored, though only with 1-time monies.

      Primary Care Grants:   This critical source of funds for community health centers and other facilities devoted to providing high-quality primary care services received $500,000 in ongoing monies. Community Health Centers provide a “medical home” to communities impacted by health disparities. Note that only $70,000 of the $500K is new money! Though this is moving in the right direction, it hardly touches the need for timely access to primary care.

      Non-Medicaid Mental Health Services received $2.7 million in ongoing funding. The trick will be to make sure that adequate portion of this is devoted to services beyond Valley Mental Health, like mental health services that are provided in the primary care setting. To get involved in this vital issue, contact NAMI-Utah       (http://www.namiut.org )

 

Now for the bad or mixed news…                                (continued on page 2)

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