Education Dive

By: Linda Jacobson

Filmmaker Rob Reiner spent this summer plugging his new movie “Shock and Awe” on late-night talk shows and frequently tweeting his expressions of disgust for the man who currently occupies the White House. But 20 years ago, Reiner was campaigning for a different cause — passage of Proposition 10 on California’s general election ballot. Called the California Children and Families Act, the measure would create a 50-cent tax on tobacco products to fund programs that improve the health, welfare and school-readiness of the state’s youngest children.

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California has one of the lowest rates of uninsured children in the nation — now down to less than 3%, according to a report from Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families and data from the California Health Interview Survey. A January report from The Children’s Partnership discusses First 5’s role in not only building the research case for healthy child development, but also in supporting local initiatives to provide children with health insurance as part of a statewide movement toward universal coverage.

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