“Si TrumpCare deroga la ACA, revertirá la expansión de Medi-Cal, y si el Congreso no arregla el acantilado de atención primaria para este otoño, millones de personas en California perderán acceso a la atención médica, el estado perderá 27.000 buenos empleos y la economía perderá por lo menos  $ 3,8 mil millones al año.

Aunque no hemos calculado el costo real de las Clínicas de Salud del Pueblo (CDSDP), debemos asumir que estaremos afectados por cualquier reducción de la financiación. Creemos que una simple revocación [de la ACA] sería devastador para tanta gente no sólo en el Valle de Coachella, sino en todo el país. Tenemos que creer que nuestros miembros del Congreso no quieren privar a nadie de su cobertura de salud. Trabajando con la comunidad, haremos todo lo posible para asegurar que nuestra fuerza de trabajo permanezca en el lugar y que podamos cumplir nuestra misión de servir a cualquiera en la comunidad “.

– Claudia F. Gálvez, Directora de Asuntos Gubernamentales y Comunitarios de CDSDP

“La derogación de la Ley del Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio y la incorporación de la Ley Americana de Cuidado de la Salud realmente harán un cambio en donde la inversión va a ser hecha a largo plazo para Medi-Cal y también para mantener la expansión de Medi-Cal que un muchos de los bajos ingresos,  personas de color en el Este del Valle de Coachella califican. Además, va a haber menos financiación en el largo plazo, debido a la forma de Medi-Cal va a ser reembolsado. Va a ser más de una subvención en bloque, que tiene un límite de cuánto está viniendo, en comparación con los fondos de contrapartida, que sería una cantidad mayor si el estado invierte más que el gobierno federal.

En el largo plazo, California se verá afectada si no recibimos los dólares federales de Medi-Cal. El estado va a tener que tomar algunas decisiones sobre si vamos a ser más estrictos sobre la elegibilidad para Medi-Cal y que podría disminuir la cantidad de personas que se puedan inscribir al programa. Y luego también tenemos que averiguar cuánto dinero vamos a tener que dejar para Health4All Kids y otros programas estatales que abren acceso a la atención de la salud para nuestra gente indocumentada.

Al final, pase lo que pase a nivel federal, vamos a seguir presionando a nuestros funcionarios electos y estamos planeando una serie de ayuntamientos aquí en el Valle de Coachella. Vamos a tener un ayuntamiento con el congresista Ruiz sobre este tema. Algunos de nosotros también estamos trabajando a nivel estatal para ver qué puede hacer el estado para invertir más de nuestro dinero para incluir la atención médica para todos “.

– Maribel Núñez, Directora de la Asociación de California (CAP por sus siglas en inglés)

New America Media, News Report, Viji Sundaram, Posted: Aug 27, 2015

SACRAMENTO — California voters are embracing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in record numbers, and a growing majority now supports expanding health care coverage to undocumented residents, according to the latest Field Poll, released here in the Capitol August 26.

The survey found that sixty-two percent of voters support the law, compared to 56% last year, while 33% oppose it.

And while last year only a slight majority of voters (51%) favored the idea of extending health care coverage to undocumented Californians, this year 58 percent of voters approve, with the strongest support coming from Latinos, followed by African Americans and Asian Americans – findings that bode well for the Health for All bills sponsored by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens.

“These findings tell us that Californians value health equity,” said Judy Belk, president and chief executive officer of California Wellness Foundation, which sponsored the poll conducted by telephone in eight languages on a random sampling of 1,555 voters. “There is increasing support for the ACA and a clear desire to be inclusive of all people, including the undocumented, when it comes to health care access.”

Sarah de Guia, executive director of the Oakland-based non-profit, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, echoed those views: “We are pleased to see that almost 60 percent of California voters support expanding Medi-Cal [California’s Medicaid] to provide health services to undocumented residents,” up from 51 percent last year, she said.

And, De Guia noted: “The poll findings also shows that Californians increasingly acknowledge the contribution of immigrants to our state and our economy and are ready to move forward with a policy to provide health care. The support validates our efforts to continue expanding health care services to the undocumented and will be instrumental in our efforts to secure Health For All.”

Views about the ACA have consistently been partisan-based, and this year was no exception. Democrats back the law overwhelmingly (85 percent to 11 percent) while Republicans oppose it by 68 percent to 25 percent.

But this year, for the first time, “majorities of voters in all major regions, all races and ethnicities, and all age groups back the law,” said The Field Poll Senior Vice President Mark DiCamillo. African Americans back the law by 78 percent, followed by Latinos at 71percent and Asian Americans at 66 percent.

The poll also showed that growing majorities of voters also believe California has been successful in meeting ACA’s goals of expanding Medi-Cal, the health insurance program for low-income people, so more low-income residents could enroll in it, and providing consumers with more insurance choices and protections.

But voters remain divided on another ACA goal: limiting the rate increases that insurance companies charge their customers. While 42 percent of voters feel California has been successful in meeting this objective, 44 percent do not.

Indeed, affordability continues to be a top concern. Despite subsidies to those eligible under the Covered California exchange, 52 percent of Latinos report that it is “very difficult” to “somewhat difficult” to pay for health insurance each month, followed by 44 percent of African Americans and 49 percent of Asian Americans. However, only 37 percent of whites shared that view.

At a panel discussion in which health care advocates, state officials and a health care journalist participated following the release of the poll findings, panelists acknowledged that the rising cost of premiums is a cause for concern. State Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley observed that despite the many health care innovations the state has made, they haven’t translated into more affordable health care. Covered California’s executive director Peter Lee opined that rising health care costs is one of the reasons why wages haven’t increased.

But Lee also pointed out that the 12 insurance companies currently selling policies on Covered California have an average annual profit of a mere 1.1 percent. He said if the Medicare rollout back in 1965 is anything to go by, it’s not surprising that health care under the ACA can be made “inexpensive overnight.”

The poll found very strong backing for Medi-Cal, with two in three voters (63%) saying it was important to them and their families, with 45% saying it is very important. Four years ago, only 29 percent felt it was very important.

More than two in three voters (65%) believe the state’s implementation of the law has been successful, versus one-fifth who do not. But support drops when it comes to accessing Covered California’s website. Some 19 percent of all those surveyed, including whites, say they were “very satisfied” with their experience visiting the online health insurance marketplace website, while 36 percent say they were somewhat satisfied. Eighteen percent say they were not too satisfied, and 22 percent say they were not at all satisfied.

Nearly a quarter of Asian Americans surveyed say they want to get more information about Covered California in their native language.

The Field Poll has been measuring voter opinions about the ACA in California annually since its passage in 2010. While voter sentiment in the first four years hovered around 52 to 54 percent, the current survey finds supporters now outnumbering opponents nearly two to one.

New America Media, News Report, Viji Sundaram, Posted: Apr 16, 2015

SACRAMENTO – After hearing heart-rending testimonials from three young undocumented immigrants who have seen first hand the havoc caused by not having access to health care, the Senate Health Committee yesterday voted 7-0 to provide health care to all Californians, regardless of their immigration status. The committee also witnessed wide-ranging support from representatives of more than 30 health care, labor, education and immigrant advocacy organizations.

The vote went along party lines, with all seven Democrats on the committee supporting SB 4, the Health for All bill sponsored by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, with the two Republicans on the committee, Senators Janet Nguyen, R-Garden Grove, and Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, abstaining.

Committee chair Sen. Edward Hernandez, D-West Covina, said before the vote was taken that he was convinced that every immigrant in the United States deserved access to health care. California, he agreed with Lara, should take the leadership role in making this happen.

Like Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, before him, Hernandez said he too would like to be added as a co-author to SB 4.

Lara’s bill would allow low-income immigrant families in California to get regular medical care through the state’s health insurance program for low-income people called Medi-Cal (Medicaid in the rest of the nation). The bill would also allow undocumented immigrants whose incomes are above the Medi-Cal eligibility limit to purchase insurance through Covered California, the state’s online marketplace set up under the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Undocumented immigrants are currently excluded from purchasing health care through state exchanges.

Lara said he’s been working with officials in Washington, D.C., on a federal waiver to allow undocumented immigrants to purchase insurance on the state’s exchange, Covered California. If that fails, he said, a provision in his bill would allow the state to set up a separate exchange to provide undocumented immigrants equivalent coverage.

Gabriel Aguila, a health worker with Clínica Monseñor Romero in Los Angeles, testified in Spanish that he was diagnosed with diabetes six years ago and more recently with a tumor, and accessing health care has been a challenge. “Please reform our health care system,” he pleaded.

Lara told the committee that people should not die from easily treatable illnesses and accidents simply because they cannot access health care.

It’s “one significant area where the federal government failed,” asserted Lara.

Ronald Coleman, government affairs manager with the California Immigrant Policy Center, agreed, telling the committee members, “You have to right this wrong.”

One in 10 Californians is undocumented, yet undocumented immigrants generate millions of dollars for the state economy, noted Lara.

A new 50-state study out this week by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that the 3.1 million undocumented immigrants currently living in California collectively paid $3.2 billion in state and local taxes in 2012. This represents a $500 million increase over a similar report two years ago.

“Investing in immigrants is investing in California,” asserted Coleman.

But for the two Republicans on the committee, the question of where the bill’s funding would come from – the same question that stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee a similar bill proposed by Lara last year – remained uncertain.

Sen. Nguyen acknowledged that “our health care system has many deficiencies,” a significant one being not having enough doctors and dentists in the Medi-Cal network because of the state’s low reimbursement rate. But if the state were to pass Lara’s bill, she wondered whether California would be able to “sustain” it financially. The bill, she said, comes with a price tag of over $1 billion, which she said would have to come out of the state’s general fund.

Lara said he agreed with Nguyen that Medi-Cal doctors needed to be reimbursed adequately. But he pointed out that SB 4, unlike SB 1005, the Health for All bill he sponsored last year, was far less costly. That’s because under SB 4, no financial support from the state would be provided for people buying insurance through the exchange. He pointed out that nearly one-third of California’s undocumented population would be able to afford to buy insurance on the marketplace without the state’s help.

In addition, he said, if the suspension placed by a Texas court on President Obama’s executive action to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and launch the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program is lifted, an estimated 1.25 million undocumented immigrants in California may be eligible for work authorization and relief from deportation. That would drop by half the number of uninsured immigrants in California, thereby lowering Emergency Medi-Cal spending on them, he said.

The state is already spending about $1.7 billion on its Emergency Medi-Cal population. Under Lara’s bill, it would only be spending an additional 2 cents on every dollar it spends to provide comprehensive Medi-Cal, Coleman said.

SB4 is now headed to the Senate Appropriations Committee. If it is approved there, the full Senate will hear it.

“I’m optimistic about the bill passing, especially because both Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon and Speaker of the Assembly Toni Atkins have prioritized the bill,” Lara told New America Media.

Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, the statewide health care consumer advocacy network, said he believed the bill would become law this year. “We have the wind on our backs,” he said.

New America Media, News Report, Viji Sundaram, Posted: Mar 12, 2015

Pictured above: DACA recipient Ana Alcantara, 22, was misinformed by her tax preparer and ended up paying an unnecessary penalty.

A new scam targeting immigrants has gotten the attention of Uncle Sam.

Health advocates are concerned that tax preparers have been misinforming, and some even outright scamming, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries by making them pay a penalty for not having health insurance. On Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released a statement clarifying that there is no such penalty for undocumented immigrants or for DACA recipients. DACA is a program announced by President Obama in 2012 that gives temporary protection against deportation to undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children.

“Advocates have been asking [the Obama administration] for a month to provide [tax preparers] some clarity,” said Angel Padilla, a health policy analyst at the Washington, D.C. office of the National Immigration Law Center. Up until now, he said, “there was not something official we [had that we] could point to from IRS that makes this clear. Now we do.”

The IRS website now reflects the clarity that advocates have been pressuring it to spell out:Individuals who are not U.S. citizens or nationals and are not lawfully present in the United States are exempt from the individual shared responsibility provision. For this purpose, an immigrant with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status is considered not lawfully present and therefore is eligible for this exemption. An individual may qualify for this exemption even if he or she has a social security number (SSN).

The confusion arises from a policy under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires nearly all Americans to have some form of health insurance, or face a penalty. That coverage could come from job-based insurance; an individual health plan bought through government-run health care exchanges or elsewhere; Medicaid (known as Medi-Cal in California), a government-funded health insurance program for low-income people; or Medicare, a health insurance program for those who are over 65 or have a disability.

For 2014, the first year the policy went into effect, the penalty for failing to get such coverage was $95 per adult and $47.50 per child, or 1 percent of taxable household income, whichever was greater. The penalty will increase in subsequent years.

But the requirement to have health insurance does not extend to undocumented immigrants or DACA beneficiaries. That’s because they are not lawful residents. DACA is only a benefit eligibility category, not an immigration status.

It is a distinction that neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the Internal Revenue Service made clear on their websites until now, Padilla said.

“That lack of clarity trickled down to tax preparers,” he said.

Brenda Ordaz, a representative of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) and a health navigator for the state’s health insurance marketplace, has seen the confusion first hand. A DACA recipient herself, Ordaz says other DACA recipients have been coming to her, asking why their tax preparers were making them pay penalties for not having health insurance.

She said one tax preparer asked a DACA client to pay her the penalty directly and in cash, rather than asking the IRS to deduct it from his refund.

“I’m sure some preparers are doing this to undocumented people as well,” Ordaz said.

Los Angeles resident and DACA beneficiary Ana Alcantara, 22, says her tax preparer told her she had to pay the penalty when he discovered she didn’t have health insurance. She reluctantly agreed to have the $95 deducted from her nearly $850 tax refund.

Alcantara didn’t know she was exempt from the requirement. She also didn’t know that she could have enrolled in California’s state-funded Medi-Cal program as soon as she received DACA in 2013. Even though DACA recipients are banned from accessing any federal programs, they qualify for state-funded Medi-Cal – something that many aren’t aware of.

Meanwhile, tax preparers themselves say they don’t always know if their client is a DACA recipient. One tax preparer acknowledged that she had filed tax returns for a number of clients that included the penalty because they had failed to tell her that they were DACA beneficiaries.

“It’s hard to know because a lot of clients don’t open up,” explained Azucena Lopez, co-owner of Gonzales Tax Services in Madera, Calif. She said she had assumed they were lawful residents when they told her they had a work permit and social security number.

Since she became aware that her clients were DACA recipients — and were exempt from the penalty — Lopez says she has been filing amended tax returns. Alcantara’s tax preparer also has agreed to file an amendment so Alcantara can get her $95 back.

Read more about health care and DACA on the National Immigration Law Center’s website,www.nilc.org. 

 

NORTH SHORE – Affordable Care Act (ACA) healthcare enrollment assistance will be available to Eastern Coachella Valley residents on Saturday, January 25, at the North Shore Yacht Club, 99155 Sea View Drive. The event begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m.

The event is part of a yearlong project of Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC), in partnership with the Borrego Community Health Foundation and local congregations, to educate and inform families about the benefits of ACA.

According to ICUC, more than 53 percent of households in North Shore make $15,000 or less annually.

“If these organizations do not bring these services to us, we would never have access to them,” said Eufracia Penalosa, an ICUC leader.

Borrego Health will also be giving free mammograms and pap smears to women. These are the first steps in a campaign to bring a clinic to the community of North Shore.

The UC Davis study, Revealing the Invisible Coachella Valley, recently concluded that North Shore’s “doctor-to-resident ratio is more than 4 times below the federally recommended level.”

These enrollment events are part of a statewide effort led by PICO California with the goal of reaching over 60,000 low income Californians with the good news of health reform. In just 3 months, PICO California organizations have hosted 6 events in which they reached over 10,000 individuals.

This is the last community event in Riverside County.

Information: Karen Borja, ICUC organizer, at (760)396-6688 or [email protected]

MARIA GARCIA, AURORA SALDIVAR & BRENDA R. RINCON/Coachella Uninc

THERMAL – Hundreds of Eastern Coachella Valley families may have something to be thankful for very soon: health insurance.

The WE Connect Health Care Enrollment and Resource Fair, held last Saturday at Coachella Valley High School, brought dozens of resources together to inform approximately 1,200 attendees about their health care options under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Among them was Francisca Rubalcava, 57, who has never had health insurance. She has seen a doctor three times — once when each of her two daughters was born and once in Mexico.

“I want to find out if it’s true that one can get insurance, based on the money you have,” Rubalcava said in Spanish. Her only source of income is her husband’s Social Security checks.

Rubalcava says she is in excellent health and is more worried about her two daughters.

“I have a daughter in college, and if she gets sick, she can have somewhere to turn,” she said.

Her daughter Maria Flores, 24, helped Rubalcava fill out the applications. She also applied for herself, her husband, and her six-month old son, Alexander.

WE Connect, which has visited communities across the state, is particularly important in this region where 25 percent of residents live below the poverty line and make less than $7,000 annually.

“Having WE Connect in Coachella was significant on various levels, especially when it comes to reaching those who might not otherwise have access to reliable information on how the implementation of ACA will affect them,” said Silvia Paz, manager of Building Healthy Communities Eastern Coachella Valley. “There are over 30,000 residents in the Coachella Valley who qualify but are not enrolled for low cost or no cost insurance, like Medi-Cal, and the majority reside in the Eastern Coachella Valley.”

Adilene Gomez, 24 knows the devastating consequences of not having health care. When she suffered a miscarriage, she was denied Medi-Cal and was left with a $20,000 hospital bill.

“It’s difficult for people who don’t have a lot of work to pay for a huge medical bill, having kids and payments to do for the house and other utilities,” she said.

Gomez and her family attended WE Connect to apply for Obamacare. “There are a lot of people (at WE Connect) who can help you with paperwork and to tell you what you do or don’t qualify for, like for anyone who doesn’t own a computer or has the time for it. I think there should be a few more of events like this so people can come because some people don’t know.”

BHC Eastern Coachella Valley is dedicating efforts to ensure that those currently left out of the ACA, including the undocumented population, will soon be eligible for coverage.

“Building Healthy Communities Prevention Team received over 100 pledges to support access to medical services for the remaining uninsured,” said Paz. “aAmong those who supported the pledge were Assemblyman V. Manuel Perez, Supervisor John Benoit, and (Coachella) Mayor Eduardo Garcia.”

The free event also offered medical screenings, financial planning resources, and enrollment assistance with CalFresh, the food assistance program for low-income Californians. The first 300 attendees received free frozen turkeys.

“WE Connect signaled the first of many efforts of Building Healthy Communities to ensure access for all to medical services, including providing resources to the remaining uninsured,” Paz said.

WE Connect is part of Building Health Communities Eastern Coachella Valley’s health care enrollment efforts. The event was co-sponsored by Covered California and The California Endowment’s “Asegúrate” or “Get Covered” initiative.