{"id":7445,"date":"2017-10-27T19:03:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T19:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=7445"},"modified":"2017-10-27T19:03:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T19:03:48","slug":"texas-advocates-organize-to-assist-with-aca-enrollments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=7445","title":{"rendered":"Texas Advocates Organize to Assist with ACA Enrollments"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"As<\/a>

As the federal government pulls money out of the Affordable Care Act, its advocates and volunteers are helping to publicize the program and assist people with enrollments. Photo: Raedle\/GettyImages<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0As the Trump administration moves to weaken the Affordable Care Act, advocacy groups in Texas and across the country are taking over the federal government\u2019s role in helping people get health coverage. A coalition known as \u201cCover Texas Now\u201d is stepping in to publicize the upcoming enrollment period, and train volunteers to help people get health coverage.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Colvin, the program director of Foundation Communities, one of the Cover Texas Now groups, says their work has taken on a heightened sense of urgency this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cCover Texas Now is important because there is so much misinformation because the federal government is not going to be doing any advertising, the state of Texas is not going to be doing any advertising, so the burden is falling on local groups to get the word out to everyone,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

The federal government has shortened the enrollment period to just six weeks, from November 1 to December 15, cut an estimated 90 percent of the advertising funding and 40 percent of the budget for enrollment assistance.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump campaigned on repealing and replacing the ACA, but Congress has been unable to do so.<\/p>\n

And, since the program is still in place for 2018, Colvin says a lot of people are confused.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople assume that it doesn\u2019t exist, they think it\u2019s gone away, they think that plans will be unaffordable to them, they think that insurance companies have pulled out \u2013 and all of that is incorrect, for the most part,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Laura Guerra-Cardus is the deputy director of the Children\u2019s Defense Fund in Texas, also part of the Cover Texas Now coalition. She says the state\u2019s refusal to expand Medicaid under the ACA makes enrolling individuals through the marketplace more important than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cTexas has the highest rate of uninsured individuals in our country; we battle with the highest rate of uninsured children in our country,\u201d Guerra-Cardus states. \u201cAnd the Affordable Care Act helped us reach more people in the shortest amount of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

More information, including how to volunteer, is online at\u00a0CoverTexasNow.org.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0As the Trump administration moves to weaken the Affordable Care Act, advocacy groups in Texas and across the country are taking over the federal government\u2019s role in helping people get health coverage. A coalition known as \u201cCover Texas Now\u201d is stepping in to publicize the upcoming enrollment period, and train […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7447,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445\/revisions\/7447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}