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agencies, advocates, health plans, and providers. These meetings have helped create an open dialogue between interested parties on this important issue of mutual concern. In a similar vein, MRMIB holds bi-monthly public meetings to solicit public input in its decision-making process for Healthy Families, and will use a 14 member Advisory Board to receive further constructive feedback. MRMIB mails out drafts of regulations and model contracts to its extensive mailing list and solicits public testimony on the drafts prior to finalizing them. Throughout the implementation process, DHS and MRMIB will continue communication with interested groups to solicit feedback pertaining to California’s outreach efforts. One consistent theme that has emerged from public discussions thus far is the importance of reducing barriers to enrollment as a means of conducting outreach. In the past, long and complex forms may have intimidated and deterred potential applicants from enrolling in state health insurance programs. To ensure the greatest amount of applicants will enroll in either the state’s Medi-Cal or new insurance programs, all application materials will be simplified to make the process as easy and “applicant friendly” as possible. Recognizing that documenting assets for the purposes of determining eligibility for Medi-Cal is time consuming and burdensome for many applicants, and thus may act as a barrier to enrollment, California will disregard resources for children in the Medi-Cal federal poverty level programs. This allows DHS to significantly simplify the Medi-Cal application for children. Like the AIM program, MRMIB will also use a simple mail-in application for the new insurance program. Furthermore, DHS and MRMIB are in the process of determining whether a joint application between Medi-Cal and the new Healthy Families insurance program will simplify the application and enrollment procedure. Another matter of importance is the development of outreach and enrollment materials that are appropriate to the populations’ reading comprehension levels, languages, and cultures. DHS will create a toll free number to increase public awareness about Medi-Cal and the new insurance program. To ensure that this toll free line is accessible to the broadest array of Californians, DHS is exploring the use of multi-lingual prompts and operator assistance to help facilitate easier access to information and services. To ensure that application and enrollment materials are understandable to the target population, DHS will use the entity which has assisted in the development and translation of enrollment material for Medi-Cal managed care. Finally, public affairs officials of both DHS and MRMIB will provide information to health care providers, business coalitions and other targeted groups about the new health insurance Effective Date: Approval Date: November 1, 2009 HFP Family Contribution Increase November 1, 2009 HFP Co-Payment Increase November 1, 2009 HFP Limited Dental Plan Choice for New Subscribers

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