Gilad Edelman Photo
Adrian Jackson knew she needed to get health insurance. She didn’t know there was an office in downtown New Haven where she could get help signing up.
Jackson (at right in photo) learned about the office from Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison (at left), who was canvassing the neighborhood as part of an effort to get people to comply with the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) by enrolling in the Connecticut health insurance exchange, Access Health CT.
Morrison was one of 35 volunteers who set out Saturday from the Access Health storefront at 55 Church St. to go door-to-door spreading the word about the new health law. The canvassing effort, which was sponsored by the Black and Hispanic Caucus of the New Haven Board of Alders with assistance from Planned Parenthood, was part of the statewide push to get people signed up for health insurance before March 31. People who fail to sign up by that date will incur a tax penalty.
The success of Connecticut’s insurance exchange, which has already passed its March 31 target for enrollments, has been a bright spot in the troubled national launch of Obamacare. But according to Access Health, which tracks insurance data by zip code, more than 26,000 people still lack health coverage in New Haven. Saturday’s canvassing operation represented the next stage of the Obamacare rollout: a grassroots campaign to track down hard-to-find uninsured people in low-income neighborhoods and get them signed up, one by one.
Saturday’s volunteers went into neighborhoods where the uninsured appear most heavily concentrated: Dwight, the Hill, Fair Haven, Newhallville and Dixwell. The six alders whose wards cover those neighborhoods each led a team. The teams were divided into pairs, each pair armed with a stack of flyers and a neighborhood map with certain target streets highlighted. Their goal was to warn people about the tax penalty deadline and let them know they can get help enrolling at the Access Health storefront or by calling 1 – 855-805‑4325.
Morrison, who organized the volunteer effort, compared it to a political campaign. Only more enjoyable.
“This is so much better than political canvassing,” she said. “During an election, you’re always asking people for something. With this, I’m giving them information that’s really helpful.”
Morrison’s Dixwell team was made up of Yale College Democrats, which meant her role was half canvasser, half chauffeur, as she alternated between going door to door on icy sidewalks and shuttling the Yalies home through snow-narrowed streets in her SUV.
At day’s end, the alders returned to Access Health to tally the statistics that the volunteers had been keeping track of on clipboards. The results: 1,037 doors knocked on, 289 conversations held.
Most of the people Morrison and her team talked to said they had insurance, but said they’d give the flyers to friends or family who didn’t. Morrison suspected that some were uninsured people just saving face.
“Something I know as a social worker is, you get some people who will say they have health insurance because they’re embarrassed that they really don’t,” she said.
Adrian Jackson, a landlord and case manager, admitted to being uninsured. She also asked for more flyers to give to the tenants of her house on Henry Street.
“I’m glad you gave me this, because I know some people who are employed, and the employer doesn’t want to supply them with health insurance anymore,” she said.
With blue skies and temperatures in the 40s, Saturday was balmy by recent standards; Morrison found more constituents on the street than in their houses. At one point, she interrupted a teenaged couple idling on the sidewalk.
“Excuse me, do you have health insurance?” she asked.
“I have it,” said Karem Anzurez (pictured). “But I’m on Husky A [Connecticut’s Medicaid program for children and parents] and I’m about to turn 18, and I don’t know what happens then.”
Morrison handed her a flyer and told her to call or go to Access Health to find out what she needed to do to stay insured.
“I will,” Anzurez said.