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About 14,000 working-poor adults will still be able to get health care from the state after this month — as long as they can afford the higher premiums.

The state Legislature continued funding next year for KidsCare Parents, despite Senate and House Appropriations committee recommendations that the program be discontinued after this month.

But most families on the program will see their premiums nearly double. Private health plans this year raised their premiums about 10 percent on average, according to the Segal Co., a benefits consulting firm.

Repeated calls to several legislators, including Senate Majority Leader Tim Bee of Tucson, were not returned. But a spokesman for House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, said KidsCare Parents is "still a good deal" for families.

"The average state employee earns $35,000," Barrett Marson said. "If you are on state insurance, you pay $125 a month for you and your family, plus co-pays for everything. . . . The people on this program do work and do earn money, and to pay what the average state employee has to pay for health insurance is not too much to ask."

Officials with the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, which administers Kids-Care Parents, are grateful the Legislature agreed to continue the program, said AHCCCS spokeswoman Rainey Daye Holloway.

"At one point there was a thought not to fund any of it," Holloway said. "It was so important to make sure we keep this program going, and life is full of compromises."

Arianne Ramirez, a nursing student at Pima Community College, said she has to have health insurance because of her contact with patients. KidsCare Parents is affordable coverage for Ramirez, her husband and their child.

"If they raised my rates, I would totally understand," Ramirez said. "It's still a great program. I get messages telling me it's time for my annual check-up. And I get messages telling me how important inoculations are for children. They do a really good job."

But others say the increases are unjustified, given the state's $1 billion budget surplus and the fact that roughly 1 million Arizonans are uninsured.

"I do think it will force some people off the program," said Kathy Byrne, director of El Rio Health Center. "That means we will see the rolls of the uninsured grow once again. We have been moving in the opposite direction, but this is a bit of a setback."

KidsCare Parents enrolls parents whose children qualify for KidsCare when the family's income is between 100 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level — from $20,000 to $40,000 a year for a family of four.

The higher premiums mean a family of four living on $30,000 a year, now paying a $45 monthly premium, will pay $75 a month starting sometime after July 1. The effective date is still to be determined, Holloway said.

If a family of four has income of $35,000, their premiums will increase from $70 to $117. And for a family of four making $40,000 a year — the maximum allowed under KidsCare Parents — premiums will go up from $85 a month to $167.

Those parents make too much money for regular AHCCCS, which covers people with incomes below poverty level.

The Segal Co.'s John Povinelli said KidsCare Parents' higher premiums mirror a trend in the commercial insurance market. Employers nationwide are passing on more of the cost of health insurance to their employees as a way to increase employees' appreciation for the coverage, Povinelli said.

The Legislature raised premiums for children on KidsCare by $10 a month in 2004. Afterward, the number of children participating in the program decreased more than 5 percent in any given month, according to a new study conducted by the Urban Institute for Children's Action Alliance, a Phoenix advocacy group.

"There is no doubt that these premium increases will cause some people to become uninsured," said Dana Naimark, special projects director of Children's Action Alliance.

When the number of uninsured citizens goes up, health-care costs go up for everyone with insurance, Byrne and Naimark said.

People without health-care coverage still get care, but typically wait until they are sick enough to go to an emergency room, where care costs are far more than in a doctor's office.

Because the uninsured can't pay, Byrne and Naimark said, the costs of their care are passed on to people who have health insurance, through higher premiums and co-pays.

KidsCare Parents is a good deal for the state, advocates say, because every dollar the state spends on the program is matched with $3 from the federal government.

The increased premiums will not mean more income for the state, Naimark said. The state has to give 75 percent of its Kids-Care Parents income back to the federal government, she said.

"The voters have made it very clear that they are interested in expanding health-care coverage for the uninsured," Naimark said. "I think these premium increases just fly in the face of what Arizonans want."