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Community Leaders Say More Work On Health Care Lies Ahead

Natalie Ragus |
March 22, 2010 | 11:35 a.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats were able to push through health care reform.
(Creative Commons)
Los Angeles' community action organizations savored the sweet taste of victory Monday with the passage of the nation's first comprehensive health care bill over the weekend.
The bill, which the House passed Sunday by a narrow 219-212 margin, promises to extend access to health care to 32 million uninsured Americans through the creation of an exchange for low-income individuals. President Barack Obama signed the bill Tuesday. 
Pastor Ryan Bell of the Hollywood Seventh Day Adventist Church works with LA Voice, a grassroots community organization dedicated to campaigning for health care reform and other quality-of-life issues. For Bell, health care reform goes far beyond politics and policy.
"Access to quality health care is a moral issue, not just a fiscal issue," he said. "We have a reponsibility as a society to care for the needs of all our citizens." 
But Bell said the real work in convincing public opinion has just begun. 
"We have a long ways to go for Americans to really believe that all Americans should be insured," he said. "We have a long way to go to win (Americans') hearts and minds."
According to the bill, by 2014 all Americans must purchase health insurance or face fines. 
Those who can't afford private coverage can buy into an exchange and take advantage of government subsidies to purchase insurance. And businesses that don't provide coverage for employees must pay into the exchange.
The bill also expands Medicaid, and prevents states from dropping low-income kids from the Children's Health Insurance Program until 2019, regardless of the state's economic situation.
 
Routine preventive care services such as pap smears and diabetes screenings will be free.

Insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions or drop sick patients except in cases of fraud.

Representatives of the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County, a coalition composed of 120 clinics that serves the uninsured and underinsured, lauded these changes.

"Just the expansion of Medicaid alone will offer coverage to over half a million of those uninsured, and the additional health centers investments will ensure that the safety net will have the capacity to serve these newly insured," said President and CEO Gloria Rodriguez,  in a public statement. "This is a welcome relief as clinics provide care for a skyrocketing number of patients during this difficult economic time."

The CCALAC said more than 2 million of L.A. county's 10 million residents do not have health insurance. 
According to the California Endowment, a private foundation that provides grants to public health-geared community organizations, a quarter of the Golden State's residents are uninsured.
"The real threat to our healthcare sercurity is the status quo," said the Endowment's Senior Vice President, Daniel Zingale. "Healthcare is becoming less affordable to more people every day. It's important to keep in mind the conseqences of not acting."
Zingale added that the public pays for uninsured patients anyway when they show up at emergency rooms with serious, yet largely preventable, illnesses and injuries. By expanding access to health care, the costs of those patients' care could drop considerably.
The bill is a step in the right direction, said the former advisor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it left out one segment of the population completely: undocumented workers. 
However, the bill will do for now.
"Not only can we afford to do this," Zingale said, "We can't afford not to."


 

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