To build support among the public and opinion leaders for expanding coverage options, the Foundation either led or funded several complementary efforts. These included a $750,000 educational advertising campaign in major newspapers and magazines to communicate the fact that eight out of 10 uninsured Americans are in working families and that their health often suffers because they delay or forgo necessary medical care. This campaign is co-sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the Business Roundtable, the Service Employees International Union, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the Health Insurance Association of America, Families USA, the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, AARP and the Catholic Health Association of the United States. Based on the educational campaign’s initial impact, the Foundation has dedicated an additional $10 million to advertise on television and in print. The campaign directs viewers and readers to a newly developed Web site www.coveringtheuninsured.org for more information on both the problem of the uninsured and proposed solutions.
     Related educational and research efforts by the Foundation included placing columns by RWJF grantees in newspapers; supporting briefings by the bipartisan Alliance for Health Reform for reporters, editorial board writers and congressional staff; developing and disseminating new policy options through “Covering America,” a project led by the Economic and Social Research Institute; developing and releasing the first of six Institute of Medicine reports on the uninsured; and providing $11 million for the Urban Institute’s National Survey of American Families, which yields valuable information about the participation of low-income families and children in health coverage programs.
    The Foundation is committed to easing the enrollment of every uninsured individual who is currently eligible for public health coverage programs. To reduce barriers to enrollment, the Foundation increased its support of efforts to enroll eligible individuals in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Medicaid and other programs.
     RWJF has allocated $55 million over the next four years to Covering Kids and Families (CKF), a new national program that will build on and supersede the Foundation’s Covering Kids™ initiative (CKI), which has been active in all 50 states and the District of Columbia since 1997. Like CKI, Covering Kids and Families intends to make it simpler to enroll children in health coverage programs as well as supporting efforts to enroll eligible adults in Medicaid and other health coverage programs. CKF coalitions will work with the states to simplify eligibility criteria, produce applications that are easier to complete, and make it possible for individuals who are enrolled in programs to remain in them without having to reapply as frequently.
    The national communications campaign of the Covering Kids initiative played a major role in 2001. Its “Back-to-School” campaign ran paid television and radio advertising in English and Spanish, organized at least 1,000 local enrollment events in every state and the District of Columbia, and generated news stories that reached an audience of 80 million. More than 100,000 families called national and state toll-free phone lines to obtain applications and information about available programs. Dozens of national organizations and business associations joined in this Foundation-led effort. RWJF also supported the creation of new coverage opportunities through its State Coverage Initiatives, which funded four large demonstration grants to expand coverage in Arkansas, New Mexico, Oregon and Rhode Island.
    The need to simplify enrollment in public health coverage programs became acute in New York state after the terrorist attacks caused thousands of families to lose both their jobs and their employer-based health insurance. In response to this urgent situation, the Foundation provided $750,000 to the United Hospital Fund of New York to support its joint campaign with the state to make it as simple as possible for all those eligible to enroll in one of New York’s health coverage programs. This entailed a radically simplified application and an aggressive outreach program in multiple ethnic communities.
    The Foundation intends to continue its efforts in 2002. It will launch the educational ad campaign about the uninsured, maintain the www.coveringtheuninsured.org Web site, support efforts to enroll children and adults in public health coverage programs, assist states in establishing new coverage projects, and aid researchers and policy experts in developing solutions to this major American problem.