Health Care for America Now has
surveyed the efforts of 13 of the states who have worked to sabotage Obamacare implementation by blocking efforts of the "navigators"—people hired to help shepherd people through the process of signing up. They conclude that millions in these states, many of which have the highest rates of uninsured people in the country, will not get the information they need to sign up.
As the clock counts down to the Oct. 1 opening of ACA enrollment, anti-Obamacare governors and state legislators are blocking people’s access to care by adding significant and unnecessary regulatory burdens to ACA-funded “navigator” organizations helping consumers sign up for health care. These excessive requirements include such things as residency rules, extra fees, additional and unnecessary training requirements, superfluous certification exams, and prohibitions against navigators talking with consumer about the benefits offered by different plans. Many years of experience with Medicare counselors in the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP)—the model for the navigator program—suggest that these and other requirements are not warranted. [...]
As the clock counts down to the Oct. 1 opening of ACA enrollment, anti-Obamacare governors and state legislators are blocking people’s access to care by adding significant and unnecessary regulatory burdens to ACA-funded “navigator” organizations helping consumers sign up for health care. These excessive requirements include such things as residency rules, extra fees, additional and unnecessary training requirements, superfluous certification exams, and prohibitions against navigators talking with consumer about the benefits offered by different plans. Many years of experience with Medicare counselors in the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP)—the model for the navigator program—suggest that these and other requirements are not warranted.
HCAN equates this effort with the kinds of tactics states used to fight civil rights laws, to keep schools segregated and to hamper voter registration efforts. Given that
people can register to vote while signing up for Obamacare, Republican states who are fighting it get a two-fer. If you can consider having a sicker population without access to health care a bonus.
Please sign our petition telling Florida Department of Health officials to allow health care Navigators on state owned health facilities to discuss the Affordable Care Act.