On Saturday, Acting Under Secretary of Education Jamienne Studley and Rep. Joe Garcia will join several Florida community organizations in a bilingual community event in Homestead, Fla., to help Latinos learn about and enroll in quality health care plans available under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The organizations are: Planned Parenthood Federation of America; Get Covered America; National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; Coalition of Florida Farmworker Organizations; National Council of La Raza; and the National Hispanic Council on the Aging.
Nearly 1.3 million Latinos are uninsured in Florida, and 36 percent of Miami-Dade County residents lack health insurance. This event will help Latinos learn about and enroll in quality health care plans available under the ACA. Attendees can obtain information on the new insurance plans, discover what financial assistance may be available to them, and work one-on-one with certified ACA navigators to get enrolled on-site. On the day of the event, attendees interested in enrolling will need to provide an email address, Social Security number, proof of legal residency (residence card, or citizenship certificate or passport), and income verification to apply.
The Department is working with state and local partners to provide information to some of the country’s fifty million uninsured, including secondary and post-secondary students, ESL students and low income families. Among the most important provisions for families and students is access to preventative care that will result in students spending more time in the classroom learning, and less time outside of class recovering from preventable illnesses.
For several years, the Department has engaged in sharing health information with students and parents including details about the Children's Health Insurance Program in the 1990s and the H1NI flu outbreak in 2010.