Panic! Over 300,000 nationwide who signed up for Obamacare may be ineligible immigrants

08/15/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Associated Press is reporting that Florida and Texas top the list of states with the greatest number of people who may be booted from health coverage under the Obama/Pelosi Affordable Care Act. Immigrants have until September 5th to produce documents showing their eligibility. I guess this also means they have been enjoying subsidized health coverage for some time already.

Will Obama illegally extend this deadline too?

AP at WPTV 5 West Palm Beach:

MIAMI (AP) — Nearly 100,000 Floridians who bought health insurance through the Affordable Care Act could have their taxpayer-subsidized coverage canceled if they don’t send citizenship and immigration documents to confirm their eligibility by Sept. 5.

Federal health officials sent out letters in English and Spanish to consumers Tuesday warning there was an inconsistency between what they wrote on their health insurance application and the immigration and citizenship information that the feds have on record. Officials will reach out to consumers two more times by phone and once via email before the deadline. The documents must be submitted by Sept. 5 or coverage will end Sept. 30.

Many consumers have already been contacted five to seven times, but still haven’t responded, senior health officials said on a conference call Tuesday.

Of the 8 million people around the country who signed up for private coverage through President Barack Obama’s law, more than 2 million at one point had discrepancies of one sort or another that could have affected their eligibility. That number has been greatly reduced — but the remaining cases are proving difficult to untangle.

Nearly 1 million U.S. consumers have immigration-related inconsistencies with their applications. The feds have closed 450,000 cases and another 210,000 are in progress. But 310,000 consumers haven’t submitted any documents, including 93,800 in Florida.

Florida has the highest number, followed by Texas with 52,700, according to data from federal health officials.

By the way, legal refugees should have no problem getting coverage under Obamacare and in fact the Office of Refugee Resettlement is looking to states which have expanded Medicaid under Obamacare to be states they will target with more refugee placement. See news about “Key Indicators” here.

Tuberculosis at refugee camps for the ‘unaccompanied minors?’ Not to worry, we have Obamacare!

07/07/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For long-time readers of RRW this should not be a surprise. Our normal refugee resettlement program allows refugees screened abroad with both TB and HIV/AIDS to enter the country, why would we expect that somehow the unscreened are all free of infectious diseases. (Hey, sure is good that we have Obamacare to take care of them all!)

See our post in March about how the foreign-born represent most of US TB cases, here.

TB germs spread through coughing. Those Baptists contracted by the feds to take care of the “children” are brave!

Here is the latest disturbing news from Todd Starnes at Fox News (Hat tip: Joanne):

Are the thousands of illegal immigrant kids housed in detention facilities happy and well fed — or are they living in disease-infested compounds shrouded in secrecy?

Well, it depends on who you ask.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seems to think the children coming across the southern border are remarkably healthy. It’s a sentiment shared by BCFS — the Texas-based agency formerly known as Baptist Child & Family Services contracted to run camps at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and Fort Sill in Oklahoma.

[….]

However, at least a half dozen anonymous sources, including nurses and health care providers who worked at Lackland, allege that the government is covering up what they believe to be a very serious health threat.

Several of my sources tell me that tuberculosis has become a dangerous issue at both the border and the camps.

Read the whole thing yourself (if you can stand it!). I’m weary of the invasion news! Tomorrow we need to return to some other refugee news items that have fallen by the wayside in the last week!

See all of our previous posts on ‘unaccompanied minors’ by clicking here (if you aren’t sick of it!).

And, don’t miss our ‘health issues’ category with over 200 posts on the health problems of refugees.

Philadelphia: Refugees sign up for Obamacare, but don’t know how to use it

05/06/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Affordable Care Act navigators have managed to sign up large numbers of immigrants in a health care plan, but mostly because the language barrier is so great, those same counselors now need to be sure those who signed use their insurance and PAY THEIR BILL.

Burmese refugee surprise: I have to pay even if I’m not sick???

One of the counselors said you could be here for 20 years and speak perfect English and still not be able to figure it out!

From Philly.com:

When Biak Sung escaped from Myanmar in 2011, there was no health insurance for people like her.

So it’s not surprising that months after buying a plan on the Affordable Care Act marketplace, Sung, 27, a mother of two and a political refugee – whose English consists of “hello” and “thank you” – doesn’t know how to use her family’s policy.

Last week, Sung, whose husband works full time, went to the Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Association Coalition (SEAMAAC) in South Philadelphia to learn about her new policy, an Independence Blue Cross silver-tier Keystone HMO Proactive plan.

“She doesn’t know what steps to do next and she is concerned,” said Zing Thluai, a SEAMAAC worker who speaks one of three Burmese dialects.

Navigators/counselors now going back to make sure they pay their bills!

So the staff started calling clients, asking whether they had paid their premiums or needed assistance. It wasn’t unusual to hear people say they had received a bill but didn’t know what to do with it because they weren’t sick. Staffers had to explain that the bill must be paid every month, sick or not.

This is surely the next shoe to drop on Obamacare—getting the cash out of people who signed up (and not just the immigrants)!

See our extensive ‘Health issues’ category for more on refugee health.

Minnesota government official: Somalis signing up for Medicaid in big numbers!

03/28/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Jesson: We are successfully passing their care on to the federal taxpayer!

It’s just a short piece in Voice of Alexandria.

As the Obamacare deadline approaches (whenever that is!), Somalis are signing up in large numbers for Medicaid in Minnesota thus taking the burden of their healthcare off “welcoming” Minnesota and placing it on US taxpayers.

Mosque visits were successful.

(St. Paul, MN) — Officials say efforts to enroll Somali immigrants for health coverage via Medicaid in Minnesota have been largely successful. Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson says with the help of the Somali Health Solutions group, enrollment expectations are being exceeded.

She says they had a goal of enrolling 500 before the end of march and have already enrolled over a thousand and many of them in public programs. Jesson says the outreach efforts have included events at mosques and community centers throughout the state.

She says the high numbers are especially encouraging, because a recent Minnesota Health Access Survey shows that people of color are more likely than whites to be uninsured.

How many Somalis in Minnesota?

For new readers, besides the hundreds/thousands?* of new refugees being resettled in Minnesota each year, in 2012 over 2000 secondary migrants (largely Somalis) went to live in Minnesota.

By the way, this 2011 post is still one of our top posts on most days—how did we get so many Somalis in Minneapolis?

*Until recently we could see the statistics at a US State Department contracted website about how many of which ethnic group were being resettled in every resettlement city and town in America, but the feds have removed from public view those website pages at WRAPSnet. Heck, I can’t even get on the website anymore! Your US Senator or Congressman can request those statistics, including the religions of the refugees resettled.

The expansion of Medicaid is a “key indicator for refugee placement”

03/19/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If your state is one of those which has expanded Medicaid as a result of Obamacare then yours is a prime target for refugee resettlement.

I don’t know when they did it, but the feds and their contractors seem to have chosen the word “placement” over “resettlement” in their government lingo.

Whatever they are calling it, they are on the hunt for new “welcoming” locations to start seed communities of refugees because many of the old places are saturated and complaining—think Lewiston, ME, Manchester, NH, Nashville, TN, Atlanta, GA and most recently Amarillo, TX. All “pockets of resistance!”

So, back to ‘Key Indicators for Refugee Placement FY2014’.…

One of their key indicators for the desirability (the “capacity”) of your community as a placement site is whether your state has expanded Medicaid!

From the Introduction:

Affordable Care Act

ORR [Office of Refugee Resettlement] considers placement to be a key element in facilitating a refugee’s successful adjustment. One major factor that may affect placement is the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Accordingly this year’s data has incorporated information on heath access determinants including updates on states that plan to expand Medicaid during the final implementation phase of ACA, and states that have ruled Medicaid expansion out.

Then check out the handy data on which states have and which states haven’t expanded Medicaid (pages 11, 12, 13).