March 2000 • Volume 6 • Number 3
• Grassroots Advocacy •
HAWK-I kids rate -- they get free or low-cost insurance
BY TODD SIMCHUK AND JANE STOEVER
Ames, Iowa
Gary Erbes, M.D., notices the squint and quickly confirms that Michael Oelschlager, 13, is a prime candidate for eyeglasses.The Oelschlager family of Roland, Iowa, left their previous residence in Des Moines because they were unhappy with the schools there. Sons Michael and Tyler would do better elsewhere, they figured.
But in Roland, a small town between Des Moines and the Minnesota border, Tim and Julie Oelschlager found an incomplete and expensive insurance situation.
Keeping Tyler and Michael covered would be tremendously difficult at best, they figured. Until Julie Oelschlager saw a brochure for the HAWK-I (Healthy and Well Kids in Iowa) program.
"This we could afford," Oelschlager said Feb. 2 at the McFarland Family Medicine Clinic in Ames.
She was there with Tyler, 12, and Michael, 13, who wore matching football jerseys to their visit with family physician Gary Erbes, M.D. Neither boy had been to a doctor for nine months.
Tyler is 4 feet 9 inches tall, and Michael is 5 feet 2 inches tall, they discovered in the moments before Erbes entered the examination room, and Michael is pushing 100 pounds.
Erbes added to those facts. Tyler's got a heart murmur -- which the family knew -- and needs regular doctor's visits. Michael's squint means it's indeed time for glasses.
"Glasses really will help," Erbes encouraged Michael. "You might not believe this now, but there's a good reason people get glasses."
It was the kind of exam thousands of kids in Iowa receive regularly. And thousands don't.
"An estimated 63,000 children in Iowa are uninsured. Farm families often find it hard to get good insurance rates," said Erbes' partner David Carlyle, M.D. "About 33,000 children would qualify for Medicaid, but many of them belong to working families that don't want to be looked on as wards of the state. They'd be embarrassed to use a Medicaid card."
Besides, Medicaid places unrealistic demands on families, said Carlyle, noting the need to reapply for Medicaid each month. "Our mission should be to make Medicaid better," he added. "I don't see us obtaining universal health care until we have a Medicaid that people can take pride in."
Factoring in an earned income credit benefit, Medicaid in Iowa covers families with incomes up to 160 percent of the poverty level, now set at $16,000 for a family of four. HAWK-I covers children in families at 160-220 percent of the poverty level. Only families at more than 180 percent of the poverty level pay premiums -- $10 per child per month, but never more than $20 per month.
HAWK-I uses Children's Health Insurance Program funds (see story below left) and has enrolled almost 4,000 children.
Carlyle, the AAFP Public Health Award winner in 1999, helped establish the HAWK-I program separate from Medicaid.
"For the HAWK-I children, we go out and buy insurance from companies," said Carlyle. "These people have a private insurance card, often from the state's Blue Cross Blue Shield. It gives them confidence."
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2000 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
FP Report | Headlines |AAFP Home | Search