Thread: Health care coverage offered to illegal immigrants

Health care coverage offered to illegal immigrants
Program believed to be first of its kind in the nation


Web Producer: Laura Kittell

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Illegal immigrants and other uninsured Los Angeles restaurant workers are being offered inexpensive health care coverage by a community clinic and a food service worker group.

Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles spokeswoman Mariana Huerta says about 75,000 restaurant workers in Los Angeles don't have access to insurance because they are illegal immigrants.

The center has partnered with St. John's Well Child and Family Center to offer physicals, dental care and treatment for common illnesses at $25 a month. The ROC-MD program, which started last fall, was formally announced on Wednesday.

The Los Angeles Times says the pilot program is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.

Legal immigrants who cannot afford coverage under the health care law are also eligible.


Health care coverage offered to illegal immigrants - KGUN9.com

I doubt that $25/month funds this is LA. Does anyone have any other info about behind the scenes funding?
Seems typical of CA, especially LA. However premium seems very inadequate.

Here is a fuller more complete article:

L.A. program offers healthcare for illegal restaurant workers

A restaurant workers' group and an L.A. clinic have partnered in a program to provide inexpensive healthcare coverage for illegal immigrants and other uninsured food service workers.

By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times

May 3, 2012


A restaurant workers' group and a Los Angeles community clinic have launched a unique cooperative to provide health coverage to a group of people excluded from federal healthcare reform — illegal immigrants.

The pilot program, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, offers preventive and primary care to low-wage, uninsured workers in the restaurant industry. Legal immigrants and other restaurant workers who don't meet the criteria or cannot afford coverage under the healthcare law are also eligible.

About 75,000 restaurant workers in Los Angeles don't have access to insurance because of their immigration status, Mariana Huerta of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles, or ROC-LA, said Wednesday.

"Restaurant workers are preparing, serving and cooking our food," Huerta said. "So many of these workers reported that they go to work sick. That is a public health hazard for consumers."

Under the program, called ROC-MD, uninsured workers pay $25 a
month so they can go to one of several clinics run by St. John's Well Child and Family Center for physicals, basic dental care and treatment for common illnesses. The program started last fall, but organizers formally announced it Wednesday and are now recruiting more participants.

The coverage doesn't replace traditional health insurance but helps ensure that workers have a place to go for preventive care so they don't end up in emergency rooms, said Joseph Villela, senior policy advocate with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights
of Los Angeles.

The new program makes fiscal sense, said David Hayes-Bautista, director of UCLA's Center for the Study of Latino Health and
Culture. "Emergency rooms are the providers of last resort, and they are very expensive," he said. "If people can be provided alternatives, that saves everyone money."

The restaurant workers are coming to St. John's with
burns, cuts and other workplace injuries, said Jim Mangia, the clinic's president and chief executive.

Mangia said many of the workers' children are covered by Medi-Cal, which helps offset the cost of care for the adults. In addition, the new program received some grant money to get started, he
said.

Ilecara Velez, an undocumented immigrant, earns $8 an hour at a
Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles and said she has a family history of diabetes. Even though she was worried about her health, Velez, 21, said she couldn't afford to see a doctor.

So when she heard about the cooperative, she joined right away. Velez immediately saw a doctor, who, she said, gave her good
news: She didn't have diabetes.

anna.gorman@latimes.com


Program offers healthcare for illegal restaurant workers in L.A. - latimes.com

This is nothing new, they're called free clinics.

"About 75,000 restaurant workers in Los Angeles don't have access to insurance because of their immigration status"

Any wonder why after having spent a lifetime working in restaurants there is not a single one I would ever go to?


Seventy five thousand in just one City?
And how much does that same county spend a month on food stamps for the children of these illegels?

Added first article to the Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/content/health-...mmigrants-466/