This SHARE-sponsored issue brief examines child enrollment trends in California's three main public insurance programs: Medi-Cal, Health Families, and Healthy Kids.  The researchers report an overall increase in total enrollment in public insurance programs in California from 2001 through 2007, along with an overall increase in new enrollments (enrollments of children who have not been enrolled in a given program in the prior 12 months), with some variation within programs and over time.  Based on enrollment trends, the authors note that outreach efforts may contribute to the cy

The largest portion of the Medicaid undercount is caused by survey reporting error; that is, Medicaid recipients misreport their enrollment in health insurance coverage surveys. In this study, we sampled known Medicaid enrollees to learn how they respond to health insurance questions and to document correlates of accurate and inaccurate reports. We found that Medicaid enrollees are fairly accurate reporters of insurance status and type of coverage, but some do report being uninsured. Multivariate analyses point to the prominent role of program-related factors in the accuracy of reports.

Principal Investigator Michael Cousineau and his team released early findings from their SHARE project, “Evaluating the impact of outreach and enrollment strategies in California.” This issue brief, “Use of Outreach and Enrollment Strategies in California” documents the outreach and enrollment strategies targeting children adopted by various counties in the state. The brief identifies 10 types of outreach and enrollment strategies and charts how the strategies differed over time. January 2009.