HHS makes last-minute Obamacare pitch to Hispanics

The administration urged Latinos Wednesday to beat the clock and get covered on Obamacare’s exchanges within the next 30 days, citing health disparities among the fast-growing constituency and fixes to its Spanish-language website after a rocky first year.

Health officials and their nonprofit allies hope the full-court press will overshadow fears within the community, even among legal-resident Latinos, that by signing up they will put illegal-immigrant family members at risk of deportation.

Outreach groups plan to hold 600 Obamacare enrollment events with Spanish-language assisters before open enrollment ends Feb. 15, since more than a third of the Latinos who enrolled last year used in-person assistance, compared to 12 percent of their white counterparts, the administration and its nonprofit allies said.

“As one of the feast growing communities in the nation, Latinos’ health is vital to the overall well-being of our country,” Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said.

Hispanics accounted for roughly one third of the nonelderly uninsured population in 2013, before the Affordable Care Act’s main coverage provisions kicked in, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy organization.

Yet only 7 percent of those who signed up on the federal Obamacare exchange for 2014 coverage identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino — a rate that had increased slightly to 8 percent as of mid-December, during this year’s sign-ups, according to HHS data.

“It’s still true today that Latinos are more likely to be uninsured than other Americans,” said Anne Filipic, president of Enroll America, a nonprofit that tries to get people into the health exchanges.

The administration said the Spanish-language version of the federal exchange is working better than it did last year, and that it fixed a bug that kept web programs from recognizing hyphenated last names.

The administration and its partners launched their efforts Wednesday even as the House voted to cancel Mr. Obama’s deportation amnesties, a move that Hispanic advocates deemed “not helpful.”

Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Obamacare benefits. But qualified Latinos with families of mixed immigration status have been reluctant to enter the exchanges, despite personal assurances from President Obama that no one will be deported because of his health law.

Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council de la Raza, a Hispanic advocacy organization, said the Republican-led push in Congress would “undo a very positive and significant” step to integrate families of mixed immigration status, particularly as partner groups make inroads on health care.

“I do feel like the community has been much more receptive,” she said.