President Barack Obama held a Spanish-language town hall on the Affordable Care Act Today. It’s part of an effort to raise awareness and get more Latinos to sign up for health insurance. The state of Florida was a leader in the suit against the Affordable Care Act, and now it isn’t doing much to market the federally-run exchange.
As the March 31st deadline to sign up for health insurance approaches, some non-government groups are stepping in to market Obamacare to Florida’s Latinos. Just about a third of all Latinos in Florida are uninsured and would be able to buy health care through the federally-run insurance exchange.
It’s a group that tends to be a little younger and a little less sick.
Health care analysts predict that getting those low-risk customers covered will be key to making sure the insurance plans stay solvent. But getting them to sign up has been a challenge.
Stephen Keppel is director of empowerment initiatives for Univision—one of the media partners on the president’s Town Hall.
A lot of people from Latin America and the Caribbean come from countries with a single payer system. They have a completely different notion of what health care means: copays, deductibles, networks—they’re foreign concepts.
Outside of regular news coverage, Keppel says Univision is folding educational information about insurance into entertainment programing—like the variety show Sabado Gigante and the morning talk show Despierta America.
There’s also been a grassroots efforts on the part of individual churches and community groups to get the word out.
And Florida Blue has stepped in with its own marketing strategy for Latinos. The insurance company is working with Hispanic bloggers. It’s developing mobile apps in Spanish. And it’s partnering with the drug store Navarro and with health centers—where a lot of uninsured Latinos already access care.