Oregon Health Exchange Reaches Out To Immigrants, Refugees

By EDITOR
Originally published on Fri October 25, 2013 2:55 pm

Oregon has its own state health exchange to get people insured, called Cover Oregon. One of the challenges it’s facing is reaching out to refugee and immigrant communities.

For example, undocumented parents might have a child who is a U.S. citizen, and that child will be required by law to have health insurance.

From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Jordana Gustafson of KOPB has this story.



Reporter
Jordana Gustafson, reporter for OPB News. She tweets @JordyGusto.
Copyright 2013 WBUR-FM. To see more, visit http://www.wbur.org.
Transcript

ROBIN YOUNG, HOST:
Well, Oregon is one of the states that has its own exchange. There are lots of challenges at state exchanges, as well, technical challenges, challenges like reaching out to refugee and immigrant communities.

From the HERE AND NOW contributors network, Oregon Public Broadcasting's Jordana Gustafson has this story.

JORDANA GUSTAFSON: In northeast Portland earlier this month, about 10 people met in the conference room at IRCO headquarters.
That's the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken).

GUSTAFSON: Sokho Eath does outreach for IRCO. With the help of two interpreters, he's holding an information session with refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma. Eath says the process is slow but not just because of the language barrier.

SOKHO EATH: It's a lot of work to bring in folks and organize, and a lot of them need transportation, so, you know, some of the organizers drive them in.

GUSTAFSON: IRCO has a $150,000 grant from Cover Oregon to reach out to immigrants and refugees. With that money, IRCO hopes to enroll 200 immigrants and refugees in health care plans over the next year. Cover Oregon's Samantha Shepherd says the grant money for hard-to-reach populations is focused on building outreach programs that will exist for years to come, and some communities are more difficult to reach than others.

SAMANTHA SHEPHERD: If you're meeting with a Burmese family, you know, they're new here, you need to build that relationship, you're often not going to have them come to that first appointment, build trust and get them all the way through the application. So for a lot of our partners that are working with harder-to-reach populations, their work is harder.

GUSTAFSON: It's estimated that there are more than 30,000 low-income, adult legal immigrants in Oregon who lack health insurance. And now they're compelled by law to get coverage.

ROSA RIVERA: (Speaking foreign language).
GUSTAFSON: Rosa Rivera is an outreach worker at several clinics run by Virginia Garcia Medical Center. Today at a high school just outside Portland, she's focused a on another segment of the immigrant population: mixed-status families.

RIVERA: (Speaking foreign language).

MARIA MORENO: (Speaking foreign language).

GUSTAFSON: Maria Moreno and her husband are undocumented residents, but their eight-year-old daughter is a U.S. citizen, and Rivera explains to them that the new health care law means they must get insurance for their daughter. The news upsets Moreno.

MORENO: (Speaking foreign language).

GUSTAFSON: Moreno says she doesn't even know what to think. She says it's going to be hard for her and her husband. They pay rent, and then they send money to their kids in Mexico for school. It's difficult, she says. Rivera tries to calm Moreno.

RIVERA: (Speaking foreign language).

GUSTAFSON: It looks like your daughter will qualify for free coverage, she says, so don't worry, go home relaxed. I don't want you to leave here stressed. After her appointment, Moreno tells me she's worried about one other thing, a fear that immigration officials may be tipped off about her status when she applies for her daughter's insurance. But Rivera addressed that concern too.

RIVERA: (Speaking foreign language).

GUSTAFSON: Moreno tells me that Rivera explained this doesn't have anything to do with immigration. It's just about health insurance. So, she says, we'll wait for the results. Those results won't be immediate. Due to a glitch on Cover Oregon's website, people can't yet sign up online. Cover Oregon is working on the problem, but for now Rivera is filling out applications by hand. For HERE AND NOW, I'm Jordana Gustafson in Portland.

JEREMY HOBSON, HOST:

http://wwno.org/post/oregon-health-e...rants-refugees