Reuters
October 8, 2015
New
York will become one of the first major U.S. cities to expand low-cost
healthcare to uninsured immigrants regardless of their legal status
under a pilot program to
launch next spring, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday.
The
pilot, called Direct Access, will initially apply to 1,000 immigrants.
Some of them are in the country legally but still ineligible for support
under the Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. The program is
expected to expand in the following years.
“The
City’s actions today are the first step in our efforts to develop a
fully inclusive health care system that protects all of our residents,
regardless of immigration
status,” Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant
Affairs, said in a statement.
New
York, with the largest foreign-born population of any U.S. city, is
following similar immigrant healthcare models enacted in San Francisco
and Los Angeles.
Under
the Direct Access program, which will cost $6 million to launch, the
city will create a network of primary and preventative healthcare
providers specifically for
uninsured and low-income immigrants.
Many
of the city's uninsured immigrants currently seek healthcare at an
emergency facility and have access to little preventative care, a
spokeswoman with the mayor's
office said. Many of them lack primary doctors.
Immigrants
in New York have been discouraged from seeking primary or preventative
healthcare for reasons including costly services and language barriers,
according to
a de Blasio-appointed task force.
In
an effort to remove some of the barriers, the city's immigrant-focused
healthcare network will also provide information in more languages and
conduct public outreach
and education on the new program to immigrants.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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