Make the most of insurance
Little by little, Californians have been enrolling in the new health care insurance available through Covered California. The problem is that Latinos and young people have not been enrolling as much as expected.
This is a serious issue. It means that the large majority of Latinos who are uninsured and can get coverage thanks to Obamacare have not done so yet.
It is true that there are still two months to go before open enrollment closes, and people usually wait until the last minute. However, the current numbers are worrisome. Of 400,000 customers who answered a question about their ethnicity, less than 20% said they were Latino or Hispanic. Also, 30% of customers who filled out applications in the past three months but did not select a plan are Latino. And only 5.5%, roughly 25,000, spoke primarily Spanish.
These are very low numbers, taking into account that almost half of the 7 million uninsured and 46% of those eligible to receive federal subsidies are Latino.
The lack of Latinos, a demographically young population, is also affecting the low participation level among 18 to 34 year olds, which has not reached the percentages expected.
In addition, Covered California must urgently resolve the shortage of bilingual counselors. There are language and cultural barriers in a group of the Latino community that is buying health insurance for the first time and in mixed householdswith residents and undocumented immigrantsthat distrust the authorities, because they are afraid that personal information will end up in the hands of immigration authorities.
Make no mistake: the information is protected under the law and there won’t be problems like that. It is even more important to recognize and take advantage of the opportunity to obtain health care coverage. No matter if someone is young or not so much; no one is immune to the danger of an illness or accident. Today, a large number of Latinos have an opportunity to obtain medical insurance, with help from a federal subsidy. Let’s not waste it.
