Letter to Diana Dooley, Secretary of California Health and Human Services and Peter V. Lee, Executive Director of the California Health Beneift Exchange - Pregnant Women Dropped from Health Insurance

Letter

Dear Secretary Dooley and Mr. Lee,

We write to ensure that women in California have uninterrupted access to health care throughout their pregnancies.

Prenatal care is critical for healthy births and provides a foundation of lifelong health. Your leadership to expand health coverage for uninsured pregnant women has made it possible for countless families to welcome healthy babies. Pregnancy-Related Medi-Cal and the Medi-Cal Access Program (MCAP) provide an important bridge to affordable care for working women.

Optimal prenatal care begins early and includes regular visits to establish a continuous relationship with a team of providers. No woman should have to worry about losing health care while pregnant. That's why we were concerned to learn that a glitch in the system has been terminating Covered California plans for pregnant women without notice. While we appreciate your efforts to ensure women can switch between plans, we remain concerned that until the problem is fixed in late 2016, women will continue to be unenrolled from their Covered California plans and lose access to their current medical providers.

We encourage you to develop a proactive plan to ensure that there are no care interruptions. Specifically we ask that you notify all women before any changes in their health coverage are made.

We thank you for your prompt attention to this issue and stand ready to work together to guarantee that all pregnant women are aware of their coverage options and have access to high quality prenatal care.