National Healthcare Reform Info Series Comes to Miami
(text and photos by J. PÉREZ)
Maritza
Hernandez, RN - FIU Health Law & Policy Clinic Client (l-r); Natalie
Castellanos - staff sttorney, FIU Health Law & Policy Clinic; Pamela Roshell
- regional director (Region IV), U.S. Department of Health & Human
Services; Betsy Havens - attorney and Equal Justice Works fellow, Florida Legal
Services, Inc.; Jersey Garcia - executive director, MI LOLA; and Jeannett
Spencer - Department of Labor, Wage & Hourly Divisions lead discussion on
benefits of the Affordable Healthcare Act. —Miami Times photo/Jose Perez
As
this current election season heats up with the end of summer, few issues seem
to capture the attention of voters like that of healthcare. A central part of the domestic agenda for
the last two democratic presidents, the subject of healthcare reform is already
figuring significantly in President Barack Obama’s battle for reelection
against Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
With healthcare taking on partisan interpretations, the issue of voters
making an informed decision at the ballot box has become even more important
than before.
Earlier
this week, the National Council of Negro Women brought its National Health Care
Reform Tour to Florida Memorial University in the form of both a provider
resource fair for area residents and a panel discussion to raise awareness
about the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA).
The importance of such an effort to increase knowledge about what Congressperson
Federica Wilson calls “a complicated law” was at the forefront of efforts to
inform and discuss ACA in Miami and other cities in the United States tabbed as
tour sites by the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) such as Atlanta,
Newark, Albuquerque, and other communities.
Alma
Brown, Metro Dade Section President for NCNW, says that the purpose of the tour
is to “educate and inform the community about ACA especially about what it
means to each person’s rights and protection.”
Such an endeavor takes on added significance when one takes into account
that ACA is, according to Wilson, “an evolving piece of legislation.” In other words, while ACA was signed into law
by President Obama in March 2010, many of its provisions will be implemented in
stages. Thus far, small business tax
credits to help independent business owners pay for their employees’ coverage,
federal matching funds for states that expand state Medicaid coverage to more
of their residents, help for older adults who hit their respective coverage
gaps for prescription drugs (aka “donut holes), increased efforts to
investigate and prosecute healthcare fraud, help for Americans with
pre-existing conditions, allowing young adults to be eligible to remain on
their parents’ insurance plans up to the age of 26, and free preventative care
are just some of the provisions of ACA already in effect.
For
Pamela Roshell, a Regional Director for the United States Department of Health
& Human Services and a panelist for the Miami stop of the tour, the need
for ACA is simple: millions of Americans
were and remain without health insurance.
In a system that “favored providers, not consumers,” says Roshell,
minute errors in the filling out of a health care application was often used as
grounds to rescind or revoke insurance for unsuspecting people. Another big problem that ACA seeks to
address is the disproportionate amount of one’s healthcare premiums being used
to pay for other things besides actual service delivery. That is addressed, says Roshell, via the
“80-20” rule which stipulates that at least 80% of what one pays in premiums
must be spent on actual service deliverables.
Miami-Dade
County Commissioner Audrey Edmonson, who was instrumental in bringing the
health care reform tour to South Florida, sees the need for increased
information as a big need in the community – especially for at-risk segments of
our community such as older adults, people of color especially Haitian
residents, and women as a whole. At the core, however, is what she calls a lack
of “healthcare awareness.”
“Now
is the time to be educated,” says Edmonson, about what ACA is and what it means
to the residents of Miami-Dade County.
“All of us need to be informed.”
Brown
sees universal healthcare as being of the utmost importance and cites
historical precedence as the source of the NCNW’s determination. NCNW founder Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune herself
recognized the need for healthcare for everyone, says Brown, as she retold the
story of how Bethune responded to the turning away of a Black student from a
segregated hospital in Daytona Beach (where she had already founded what is now
Bethune-Cookman University) by starting a hospital herself. “Healthcare has always been at the forefront”
of the mission of the NCNW, Brown told the Miami
Times, “[and] we always try to maintain our mission.”
For
organizers such Brown, Edmonson, and Wilson, feeling better is bigger than
politics. Or, as Wilson said while
delivering opening remarks to those in attendance at FMU, “everybody gets sick.”
By
José Pérez
Miami Times writer
joseperez.miamitimes@gmail.com
Miami Times writer
joseperez.miamitimes@gmail.com
@PerezMiamiTimes
# http://miamitimesonline.com/healthcare-reform-tour-stops-in-dade/
