For two years, PICO affiliate Communities Creating Opportunity (CCO) in Kansas City has been pressing the state of Missouri to enhance outreach and enrollment efforts for kids' health care programs as part of their "roadmap" for covering all children. CCO leaders celebrated a victory recently when the Missouri House of Representatives appropriated $11.8 million to fund an outreach and enrollment strategy called presumptive eligibility.

The idea behind presumptive eligibility is to reach kids and enroll them in state health care programs in the settings where they are most likely to be seen for primary and preventive care – rural health clinics and community health centers. In total, there are approximately 400 of these clinics across the state.

CCO plans on continuing to press the state to act on other components of their "roadmap," including restructuring Missouri's affordability tests so no more children are disqualified from receiving coverage; providing financial support and incentives for MC+ – Missouri's Medicaid program for children and families – in order to increase eligibility and expand high-quality preventive care; providing coverage to legal immigrant children and pregnant women; and providing financing in MC+ and other health care programs to support the cost of covering newly enrolled children.

Over the last two-and-a-half years, over 70,000 children across Missouri have lost health coverage due to administrative and procedural changes, in additional to eligibility limitations placed on parents. CCO has been working to reverse these cuts and expand health coverage to all children in the state.

For more information on Communities Creating Opportunity, visit www.cco.org