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Healthcare: Extending Coverage To The Uninsured

Sara Newman |
September 27, 2013 | 1:48 p.m. PDT

Associate News Editor

 

Saban Free Clinic is one of many in Los Angeles (Hannah Madans, Neon Tommy).
Saban Free Clinic is one of many in Los Angeles (Hannah Madans, Neon Tommy).
After tremendous contention in the House and the Senate, the Affordable Care Act has been upheld with the goal of addressing the 48.6 million people living in America without health insurance—giving millions of people healthcare coverage for the first time.

“The implementation [of Obamacare] is going to take a lot of work, effort, and fine-tuning,” said Robert C. Myrtle, an expert in healthcare administration at the University of Southern California (USC). “For people who have good jobs and preexisting healthcare coverage, it won’t have much of an impact, but for people who are getting it for the first time, the effects will be huge.”

Starting Oct. 1, Covered California will open as an online marketplace for people to buy health insurance, finally allowing people to see how Obamacare will work in practice. 

“A lot of people are really watching Los Angeles County,” said Cynthia Carmona, the Director of Government & External Affairs for the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County. “The number of patients uninsured here is far greater than elsewhere in California, and the number of patients uninsured in California is far greater than in the rest of the country; so if it can work here, it can work anywhere.”

Many Los Angeles residents go years without visiting a doctor, so when medical emergencies arise, people have historically depended on the dozens of free clinics throughout the city to provide them with much-needed medical treatment. 

“Both my son and I have healthcare coverage, but my ten-year-old grandson does not,” said Mariam Diaz, a 67-year-old patient at the Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic. “When he gets sick we try to come here, but if it is to busy we have to go to the doctor where they make us pay too much money.”

The Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic sits on the edge of Silverlake, surrounded by a combination of run-down liquor stores and boutique coffee shops. The disparity between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in the surrounding area echoes the socio-economic disparities that have prompted some people to so ardently demand the need for universal healthcare coverage.

If you don’t have healthcare, the prospects for a good life, for good economic potential, are limited,” said Myrtle. “But it’s a very complex system, so it may take two, three or four years to see a sizable impact.” 

Once changes begin to occur under the Affordable Care Act, the role of these clinics could be altered. 

“We are really trying to make the push for more preventative care,” said Carmona. “The legislation of the Affordable Care Act includes policies that encourage people to manage their chronic conditions so that they don’t end up in the emergency room.” 

As a majority of the 1,031,000 patients who visit these clinics each year fall too far below the poverty line to qualify for nationalized healthcare, the role of free and community clinics will remain incredibly important even with the upcoming overhaul in healthcare management. 

“We also need to make sure that people who do not make enough money to qualify for coverage under the Affordable Care know to seek out  federally subsidized coverage through Healthy Way LA,” said Carmona. “Community clinics and health centers have always had the mission of helping people whether or not they can pay, so we will continue to care even for patients who do not qualify for any federal medical coverage"

SEE MORE:  Neon Tommy's Coverage of the Affordable Care Act

If Yelp reviews are any indication of the state of affairs in most of the local clinics, managerial and facilities changes would be welcome as well.  

“This place really needs to be shut down,” reads a Yelp review of the Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic by Robert C. “It's a pathetic excuse for a government subsidized free clinic…they are never taking new patients. Even though as I stopped in recently and they were totally empty.”

Other reviews offer more hope as to how the clinics may fare once the healthcare bill funnels more money into clinics like the Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic. 

“This is a free clinic and it continues to offer its services for free largely due to donations from the patients and other local and national organizations,” reads another Yelp review by Anthony N. “Due to the lack of funding, however, they offer limited services for general medical issues.”

After devoting a great deal of his presidency to healthcare advocacy, President Obama has a lot riding on the smooth implementation of universal healthcare coverage and how the promise of preventative care holds up in practice.

Clinics in the area (Hannah Madans, Neon Tommy)
Clinics in the area (Hannah Madans, Neon Tommy)

View Free and Low-Cost Clinics in Los Angeles in a larger map.

 

Read more about Obamacare here.  

Contact Associate News Editor Sara Newman here. Follow her here



 

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