The Palm Beach County Community Health Alliance has started “to use computer software that matches residents with low-cost plans from government or nonprofit groups.” The intention of the Health Alliance is “to enroll 2,000 to 3,000 people this first year and every year after. Eventually, enrollment would snowball to match the population of about 250,000 uninsured.”
Vita Health is another plan in Palm Beach County that through its Coordinated Care program “has about 10,000 members on any given month, reaches residents earning 11/2 times the federal poverty level.”
Not helping the matter was the passage of the Deficit Reduction Act that increased Medicaid co-payments and premiums.
Another program is Project Access online offered by the Palm Beach County Medical Society that has “220 volunteer physicians who provide free care for people who don’t qualify for Medicaid or other programs.”
The last resort for many people are free health clinics such as Caridad Center and Carelink Clinic that mainly serve farm workers and immigrant laborers. Caridad Center sees around 7,000 patients a year while Carelink saw 2,400 patients last year.
Instead of creating a patchwork of health programs for the uninsured why not create a universal health care program in this country? I will continue to sound off about the need for universal health care in this country as our current failing system continues to do a disservice to millions of people.
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