Minnesota Covering Kids & Families Initiative
Grant Overview
The MinnesotaCare program, which provides low-cost coverage for uninsured children and their families with incomes up to 275% of the federal poverty guidelines and adults without children up to 175% of poverty, currently has an average monthly enrollment of 155,000 people. Because of MinnesotaCare, the uninsured rate in Minnesota has remained at a relatively constant level of 5% for the past several years. Current estimates indicate that there are approximately 266,000 uninsured people in Minnesota and that nearly half of them may be eligible for fully or partially subsidized public health coverage. In looking at children, Minnesota has about 56,000 uninsured kids (under 18) and nearly 70% of them might be eligible for the public programs. Under the Covering Kids and Families Project, four local projects have been established to identify and help enroll uninsured children, families and adults in public health coverage programs (which include MinnesotaCare, Medical Assistance and General Assistance Medical Care) or help them find other services if they do not meet the public programs eligibility criteria. The local projects are in Minneapolis (serving residents of Hennepin County), Olmsted County, the east metropolitan area (serving residents of Ramsey, Dakota and Washington Counties) and in Northern Minnesota (serving residents of Beltrami and Cass Counties). Although the local projects serve anyone who is uninsured, they each focus on strategies and interventions to reach targeted groups of underserved populations. Minneapolis looks for new ways to assist immigrant groups and African Americans, Olmsted County focuses on migrant workers and farming families, the east metro pilot focuses on the Latino population and the Beltrami/Cass County project will focus on Native Americans and rural poor. In addition to improving outreach through its local projects, the statewide Covering Kids and Families project is involved in initiatives to simplify the enrollment process, to increase retention in the public programs and to coordinate the health care initiatives with other programs. A unique tool developed by Covering Kids in Minnesota is called the Covering All Families website which consolidates eligibility criteria for seven programs for low-income families including the health care programs, school lunch program, the working family tax credits and public child care programs. Community organizations, churches, and tax assistance programs are being trained on how to use the website to most effectively help low-income families find out about all the programs for which they are eligible. Minnesota's Covering Kids and Families project is assisted in its efforts by the statewide coalition called Cover All Kids. Minnesota's Covering Kids and Families project and members of its coalition are also involved with the Supporting Families project that is piloting techniques to improve retention in the health care programs, Building Bridges project that is piloting health outreach programs within the school districts, and Cover the Uninsured Week. In light of inordinate budget cuts in Minnesota, coalition members are very involved in advocating to save the health care programs and in stimulating further discussions on universal health care issues.
Grant Amount
Children: $800,000
Adults: $200,000
Start Date
July 1, 2002 End Date
June 30, 2006
Target Populations
Chidren and Families (search other projects targeting Chidren and Families) Interventions
Business (search other projects using this intervention)
Child care providers (search other projects using this intervention)
Providers (search other projects using this intervention)
Schools (search other projects using this intervention) Lead Organization
Children's Defense Fund Minnesota
Contact
Elaine Cunningham
200 University Ave. West
Suite 210
St. Paul, MN 55103
p (651) 855-1176
e cunningham@cdf-mn.org
w www.cdf-mn.org
Local Projects in Minnesota
Beltrami County Local Project
MetroEast Local Project
Minneapolis Local Project
Olmsted County Local Project
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