LOS ANGELES – Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA), Filipino American Service Group, Inc. (FASGI), Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles and the Organization of Chinese American-Greater Los Angeles hosted “Affordable Healthcare & You” — a free educational forum for the community about the Affordable Healthcare Act.
The forum began with a press conference, led by SIPA Executive Director Joel Jacinto, FASGI Executive Director Susan Espiritu-Dilkes, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-LA Project Director Doreena Wong and OCA-Greater Los Angeles Civil Rights Fellow Janet Guan.
“Both SIPA and FASGI are community-based organizations that are working collaboratively with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-LA, to educate the Filipino community about this Covered California program and how our population should avail of its services — what the program is designed for and how we could get most Filipinos involved in Covered California,” Jacinto said.
According to the Covered California website: “Covered California is California’s new health insurance exchange, where individuals, families and small businesses can find affordable health insurance.” The new health care coverage insurance will be available on January 1, 2014.
“Healthcare is a big part of an individual in a family’s equation for health and wellness,” the SIPA executive director added.
The Affordable Care Act
During the press conference, Susan Espiritu-Dilkes discussed the details of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
“Our mission is to improve the quality of life of our community through educational research and advocacy,” Dilkes said.
The FASGI executive director also stated that 66 percent of students do not know any information about the Affordable Care Act, based on the survey being conducted from the home health service class at SIPA.
The Affordable Care Act (which was signed into law by President Obama in March 2010) provides comprehensive reforms that will improve access to health coverage by creating affordable health insurance plans, providing free preventive services and removing lifetime dollar limits on health benefits. Although these features address health disparities in the Filipino American community, over 50 percent of Filipino Americans have little or no knowledge of the Affordable Care Act which demonstrates the need for outreach and education services.
After the 30-minute press conference, the healthcare reform presentation was initiated by tAsian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, led by Doreen Wong.
Wong said that nearly six million uninsured people in California will get health coverage through the Affordable Care Act — with around 600,000 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders eligible for insurance.
Filipino-Americans are the second largest Asian Pacific American group yet 14 percent are still uninsured. They also experience high rates of heart disease, diabetes and cancer but lack the health coverage to afford necessary treatments.
Wong also discussed that people who have Health Way LA insurance will move into the Medi-Cal program and will launch Covered California starting January 2014.
She compared Covered California and Medi-Cal.
“Covered California is a new marketplace to a new health exchange to buy insurance for the individuals who make more than $16,000.”
People who make less than $16,000 are eligible for Medi-Cal, Wong added.
Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez at the event
After the one-hour healthcare reform presentation, Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez came to visit SIPA to show his support of the California healthcare programs and help the community.
Prior to his career as the 51st California State Assemblyman, Jimmy Gomez was the political director of the United Nurses Association of California.
The assemblyman discussed Covered California.
“This is the California version of Obamacare, on how we are implementing it in California. One of the things that is required is you can either do a health insurance exchange at the national level or state-specific,” Gomez said.
“In order for Obamacare to work, we need as many people to enroll as quickly as possible, in order to make sure that we get the benefits for the community,” he added.
The forum event was open to the public.
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Midweek September 18 – 20, 2013 Sec A pg.1)