Santa Clara Family Health Foundation (SCFHF)

Santa Clara Family Health Foundation (SCFHF) is a non-profit, 501 (c) (3) organization whose focus is on raising funds to support the Healthy Kids insurance program and the Children’s Health Initiative in Santa Clara County. Through the Foundation, community leaders, community members, foundations, corporations, local businesses, friends, and other supporters can contribute funds to help achieve the goal of providing every child in Santa Clara County with access to quality health care through insurance.

To be complete, even a brief overview of SCFHF requires a short history and explanation of the Foundation’s parent organization, Santa Clara Family Health Plan (SCFHP).

Established by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, Santa Clara Family Health Plan is a fully licensed, not-for-profit health plan that began operations in February 1997. SCFHP began as a local initiative to participate in the Medi-Cal managed care “Two Plan Model.” Family Health Plan has always been a freestanding public agency whose primary mission is to ensure access to health care coverage for those unable to afford it.

In July of 1998 Family Health Plan began administering a second subsidized insurance program, Healthy Families. The Healthy Families program was established in California in response to the federal enactment of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997. With its income restrictions, Medi-Cal cannot provide coverage for all those in need. To address this limitation, California designed the Healthy Families program, extending coverage to children in families with incomes of between 100% (the upper limit for Medi-Cal) and 200% of the federal poverty level. The upper-level limitation for Healthy Families coverage was later increased to 250% of the federal poverty level.

In late 2000, SCFHP’s Board of Directors (the Santa Clara County Health Authority) directed that excess funds from Family Health Plan’s risk pools be given back to the local community. To comply with this directive, SCFHP established Santa Clara Family Health Foundation. SCFHF’s initial purpose was twofold: to appropriately disburse SCFHP’s excess funds; and to provide a means for SCFHP to receive funds, when needed, for research and community outreach.

During this same time period, a grassroots movement initiated by labor-affiliated Working Partnerships USA and faith-based People Acting in Community Together (PACT) was underway to improve the availability and accessibility of health care for children in Santa Clara County. While Medi-Cal and Healthy Families were already serving many low-income children, many other eligible children were still, for various reasons, uninsured. Large numbers of needy children remained without access to affordable health care coverage because their immigration status or their family income rendered them ineligible for existing subsidized programs.

In December 2000, because of the efforts of Working Partnerships and PACT, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved the use of tobacco settlement funds to create a first-of-its-kind health insurance program designed to fill the gap left by Medi-Cal and Healthy Families coverage. The Board of Supervisors directed the Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System (SCVHHS) to develop a plan to make comprehensive health insurance available and accessible to Santa Clara County’s uninsured children.

SCVHHS undertook the project along with PACT, Working Partnerships, Santa Clara County Social Services Agency, and Santa Clara Family Health Plan. These founding organizations created the Healthy Kids insurance program, which would, upon implementation, be managed by SCFHP. In addition, these organizations established an extensive outreach plan known as the Children’s Health Initiative, or CHI, to promote enrollment in Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, and Healthy Kids. To this day, CHI continues in its efforts, going out into the community to locate and provide insurance assistance for all of the county’s eligible children.

With the onset of the Healthy Kids program and the Children’s Health Initiative, Family Health Foundation’s Board directed that the Foundation’s activities be focused on raising funds for these two worthy causes. Initial startup money and an ongoing funding commitment came from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Since then, the Foundation has gained support and funding from such sources as FIRST 5 Santa Clara County, the County of Santa Clara, the City of San Jose, Santa Clara Family Health Plan, the California Endowment, the California HealthCare Foundation, The Health Trust, the California Wellness Foundation, Applied Materials, the San Jose Mercury News, Alza, El Camino Hospital, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Bank of the West, and Sun Microsystems. In the years since Healthy Kids began enrolling children, community support and appreciation for the program and for the Children’s Health Initiative have continued to grow.

Today, as more and more eligible children are found for the Healthy Kids program, Family Health Foundation’s goal is to obtain sufficient funding to ensure that every eligible child can be enrolled.