Community consortium kickoff MIChild enrollment on Oct. 23

EDITORS: Enrollment in the MIChild health insurance program will be 4-7 p.m., Oct. 23, Butzel Family Center, 7737 Kercheval Ave., Detroit. A media invitation has been planned for 3:30 p.m. for members of the media who’d like to interview consortium members.

ANN ARBOR—The East Side Community Health Insurance Program will officially kickoff enrollment in MIChild on Oct. 23 at the Butzel Family Center, 7737 Kercheval Ave., Detroit.

The program, also known as East Side CHIP, is a University of Michigan/Detroit community outreach program designed to locate and enroll eligible children of the working poor into MIChild, Michigan’s version of a federal program designed to insure children of the working poor whose jobs don’t offer health insurance of any kind. The program also will enroll eligible, uninsured children in Medicaid.

The U-M School of Public Health has partnered with the Detroit Department of Human Services, Neighborhood Service Organization at Harper/Gratiot Multi Service Center and Wolverine Human Services to introduce MIChild to Detroit’s east side residents. More than 20 other community agencies are also involved in trying to identify uninsured children.

“We’re trying to get the community to learn about the existence of the program and to come out and enroll their children. We will be there Friday to talk about the importance of this project to the community,” said Richard Lichtenstein, U-M associate professor of health management and policy and one of the coalition’s coordinators.

The coalition will target uninsured children who live in the Detroit ZIP code areas of 48213, 48214 and 48215, which are neighborhoods also known by residents there as Airport, Conner, Kettering/Butzel, Mack, St. Jean and East Riverview. According to a 1996 study by U-M researchers, 8.2 percent or 2,800 of the children who reside in these neighborhoods are uninsured. Other studies indicate that the infant mortality rates in these communities hovered between 14 and 30.6 per 1,000 births compared with a national average of 8.4 per 1,000 births.

Families eligible for MIChild must earn no more than $32,000 annually for a family of four. MIChild costs $5 per month, per family. Many families in the neighborhoods are in that category, particularly female-headed households, which make up approximately 40 percent of the households in the targeted Detroit neighborhoods. Approximately two-thirds of the female-headed households in these sections of Detroit live below the poverty level.

The coalition’s work is funded by a $50,000 grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation, which contributed a total of $300,000 in grants to six organizations to reach uninsured Detroit area children. The East Side Coalition also received financial support from Mercy Hospital of Detroit and the St. John Health System, also in Detroit.

The Detroit Department of Human Services, Neighborhood Service Organization at Harper/Gratiot Multi Service Center and Wolverine Human Services will accept MIChild applications throughout the next year.

For more information on MIChild, call the East Side CHIP’s 24-hour number after Nov. 1 at (313) 963-2184.

Registration for MIChild is free. Games and other activities have been planned for children on Friday.

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U-M News and Information Services University of Michigan

MIChildPublic HealthRichard LichtensteinBlue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan FoundationU-M News and Information ServicesUniversity of Michigan