ELIGIBLE FAMILIES RESIST HANDOUT FROM STATE

Wanted: 90,000 poor children.

Missouri has struggled to locate the 90,000 children who the state claims have become eligible for expanded health-care coverage, thanks to a generous program with even more generous standards.

After three months, 22,396 children have been enrolled in the program despite widespread publicity and a toll-free number.

The lack of participation may have more to do with personal values than lack of salesmanship by the state.

The Children's Health Initiative Program expanded health coverage to families with poverty levels from 101 percent to 300 percent of the minimum. Many of these may be working families and may not relish turning to the state for handouts.

Many of Missouri's families have not been raised on the notion that they are owed these services by the state. These families may be working to make ends meet and sometimes coming up short. To make up the difference, they may be relying on family, friends, churches or other community-based programs.

Missouri is one of only five states to extend eligibility for the health plan to children in families with incomes as high as 300 percent more than the poverty level. And the state is one of only four to extend coverage to age 19.

Granted, the state will not foot the entire bill. The state kicked in $151.9 million for the program's first year. The bulk of funding is being provided by the federally financed Medicaid program. But whether it comes from the state or the feds, it is the taxpayers who are footing the bill.

And families that fall in the 134 percent to 300 percent of poverty pay a share of the cost, $65 per month. Ask anyone paying a family insurance premium. It's a rock bottom price.

The state never seems to learn its lesson. Just as Missouri expects the working poor to eagerly reach for handouts, the state extends its hand to the deep pockets of the federal government. The chain of interdependence seems unbroken.

But then a surprising twist has occurred. Thousands of families have quietly passed up this newest medical handout for children. The state seems sorely puzzled by this attitude.

The response should provide a refreshing message to bureaucrats. Not everyone is eager for a handout. Thousands of working families are struggling to make ends meet and are choosing to make their own way.

They have seen the woes of government dependence and are making a wide circle not to follow the path of subsidy addiction.