As Washington legislature battles funding ObamaCare with its Oct. 1 implementation, Patty Romero, manger/regional coordinator for the Borrego Community Health Foundation in El Cajon said the upcoming Affordable Health Care Act is going to insure more people. She said it will provide a healthier community and give the uninsured and underinsured access to good medical care.
As Washington legislature battles funding ObamaCare with its Oct. 1 implementation, Patty Romero, manger/regional coordinator for the Borrego Community Health Foundation in El Cajon said the upcoming Affordable Health Care Act is going to insure more people. She said it will provide a healthier community and give the uninsured and underinsured access to good medical care.
Part of Covered California (www.coveredca.com), it now has staff conducting outreach and communication to the community and small businesses (less than 50 employees) to inform them about the implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act. Romero said staff attended classes and were tested before being able to reach out to the community.
“I feel really glad and confident that all of this is happening right now,” said Romero. “Now we have the staff that can go out into the community and do public or one-on-one presentations as needed.”
Romero said they can answer the questions of when, how, where people can be covered and the many various programs that a person can qualify under for specific health care plans. Romero said it is her passion to outreach to the community of what kind of health programs are available, but with the new Health Care Act, there are more people that will be able to afford health insurance.
“We want to decrease the huge number of uninsured people,” she said. “And Covered CA has premium assistance that will benefit many consumers. People need to know that there is financial assistance there for people that are unable to deal with premiums.”
Romero said in dealing on on one with consumers, it has a calculator system in place to show what programs a client fall under for premium assistance. She said this could make a huge difference in the amount of premium paid by the consumer.
Each county has a different selection of health plans to choose from, she said. She said it is their job to inform consumers of options, plans and different tier groups according to income specific to San Diego County.
The Borrego Community Health Foundation in El Cajon currently has two trained health care outreach specialists and information is available in English, Arabic and Spanish.
“We never leave anybody without,” said Romero. “Our goal is for consumers to feel confident that what they learn through our outreach is what will be implemented on Oct. 1. This is our work, this is our passion and this is our mission.”
For information about upcoming presentations, one-on-one counseling, the public and small businesses can call Ghaith Alobaidi or Claudia Meza at (619) 873-3518/9.
