Though it's a drought year, people in a Camarillo auditorium Wednesday were hit by a shower of numbers from the thunderstorm that is the state's uninsured crisis.

About 10 percent of the children in Ventura County are uninsured, according to a 2005 statewide survey. That's 27,000 children or, as speaker Chuck Maxey told people at a seminar on healthcare reform, enough kids to:

n Form a single-file line that extends for 10.2 miles.

n Fill 771 classrooms with 35 people in each.

n Provide enough players for 3,000 AYSO soccer teams.

n Book 168 doctors for a full month if they had to give each child a one-hour physical.

The numbers are important, said Maricela Morales, who helped organize the event aimed at helping people understand the problem as well as the statewide proposals to fix it. Statistics help focus people in a debate where the many players and agendas create a maze of diversions.

"Ultimately this is about human impact," said Morales, associate executive director of the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy. "These numbers are a way to remind us we're talking about people, a lot of people."

Maxey, dean of the business school at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, said about 130,000 county residents under 65 don't have insurance, according to the state survey. That's about 18 percent of the population.

Morales said the number of uninsured children is declining, but Ventura County's share of minors without insurance still ranks 46th out of California's 58 counties. Maxey said the working poor in the county are caught in the middle. They're not eligible for public programs but either don't get insurance through work or can't afford their employers' rates.

While Maxey dealt from the deep deck of insurance statistics, legislative analyst Kelly Brooks spoke to the seminar about different reform plans. She said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will continue to play the role of power broker in the battle over various healthcare proposals, though his own proposal mandating every Californian be insured has not yet been presented as a bill.

Brooks, who works with the California State Association of Counties, said the reform with the best chance of reaching Schwarzenegger's desk is a package put together by Democratic leaders of the Assembly and Senate. Assembly Bill 8 is designed to expand insurance coverage to about 70 percent of Californians who are currently uninsured. It requires all employers to pay at least 7.5 percent of their payroll in healthcare benefits.

"I think the question with AB8 is will it ever be implemented," said Brooks, noting it's likely the bill would face legal challenges from employer groups.

She wondered if the struggle over the still unresolved state budget could bleed into the fight for healthcare reform.

"I think it could be a pretty intense late summer and early fall," she said.

The seminar came a day after the Ventura County Board of Supervisors gave final approval to a $30 million grant from the state. Spread out over three years, the money is aimed at providing healthcare to low-income uninsured residents. The grant was announced in March.

A different insurance battle is taking place in the nation's capital, Brooks said. A funding proposal by President Bush for what is called the State Children's Health Insurance Program would leave a California insurance program for families underfunded, though a House of Representatives proposal would send more money to California.

"It's not really clear what the final showdown looks like," she said.

The seminar attracted county leaders, people in healthcare and business owners. What it didn't bring was a consensus.

After the session, one small-business owner was predicting reform in California will mean more people shouldering the insurance burden so that everyone pays less.

But Jeff Gorell, co-owner of a 10-month-old public affairs company in Oxnard, said he worried whether his own business could survive reforms that mandate how much employers contribute to insurance coverage.

"There are a number of scenarios where it could put us out of business."