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Janet Firshein or Joe Sutherland at 301/652-1558

FOR RELEASE WITH A.M. PAPERS ON

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2004

NATIONAL REPORT PRAISES VIRGINIA FOR

NEW AWAKENING TO HEALTH CARE NEEDS

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 30, 2004) – An assessment of health care in the 50 states, released here today, finds that although Virginia has never been a leader in children’s health in the past, it has made it a priority in the past couple of years--most notably encouraging families to sign up their children for publicly provided insurance. The report appears in the February 2004 issue of Governing magazine.

“Most of the states are pulling back on their coverage of children,” said Katherine Barrett, co-author of the report. “And most are doing so in a kind of uncover fashion. Instead of publicly cutting income levels for which children are covered, for example, they have made it more difficult to sign up for the coverage and cut back on outreach to inform citizens of the benefits available to them. To its credit, Virginia has moved in the opposite direction.”

Despite the fact that the state was facing severe budget problems, Virginia simplified its application forms in 2002, according to the report, combined the forms necessary to apply for Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and started new outreach efforts. In fact, the authors write, “Governor Mark Warner [went] on what he called ‘a road show’ to community fairs and churches to encourage families to sign up their children.” That effort helped increase the rolls of young beneficiaries by some 50,000 through mid-summer 2003.

In addition to its work with children, the Governing report also gave the state plaudits for its investment in a new 195,000-square-foot laboratory, which opened last June and will help the state test for and track infectious diseases and possible outbreaks of bioterrorism.

Governing’s analysis of state-funded health care is part of the Government Performance Project, a six-year-old effort, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, to evaluate a wide range of state government management and policy functions. This year’s special report focuses on six critical health care problems facing states: long-term care, public health, mental health, prescription drugs, access to care for the uninsured, and care for children.

The Government Performance Project found and documented the inability of the 50 states’ health care system to deliver improvements in medicine fairly and consistently to many of their citizens. Health care in most states is not just inadequate, the study concluded--it’s deteriorating. “After exhaustive analysis and hundreds of interviews,” says Peter Harkness, Governing’s publisher and editor, “it became clear that there is a health care crisis in America. But it is in no way a medical crisis. It is a fiscal crisis.”

Governing is a policy and management magazine aimed at high-level state and local government officials. An online version of this report will be available at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/intro.htm as of January 29. Press releases for each of the 50 states can be found at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/press.htm.

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