Local Nonprofit Helps State Obamacare Survive & Thrive

The state’s health insurance exchange has seen a roughly 2 percent increase in enrollments compared to this same time last year despite federal attacks on the program’s marketing budget and public enrollment time frame.

One local healthcare nonprofit is doing its part to keep low-income New Haveners aware of the program, signed up for health insurance, and connected to urgent specialty care providers.

On Friday just before noon, U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal paid a visit to the the second-floor offices of Project Access, a local healthcare nonprofit based out of a Yale-New Haven Health hospital building at150 Sargent Dr. Project Access connects primarily uninsured patients with urgent specialty care providers, and also serves as a certified enrollment center for Access Health CT, the state’s health insurance exchange that was established in 2011 after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare.

During Friday’s visit, Access Health CT James Michel told the senators that around 101,000 state residents have enrolled on a subsidized Anthem or ConnectiCare health insurance plan through the state health care exchange since the open enrollment period opened on Nov 1. That’s an increase of roughly 2,000 or 3,000 enrollees over this same time last year, he said.

“We’re really grateful to Access Health CT and to enrollment centers like this,” Murphy said, ​“that have so far gotten us ahead of schedule, ahead of pace this year versus years past. Nationally, we’re behind the curve. Nationally, 13 percent less people have signed up this year than had signed up at the same point last year. Once again, Connecticut is outpacing the nation by far in implementing the Affordable Healthcare Act.”

Murphy, Blumenthal, and Michel were joined on their visit to Project Access by New Haven State Rep. Pat Dillon. They met with a cadre of past and present Project Access employees, board members, patient navigators, community health workers, and clients.

The visit came a little over two weeks before Access Health CT’s open enrollment period ends on Dec. 15, a full seven days earlier than the closing date for last year’s open enrollment period. The Trump administration and Congressional Republicans have long expressed a desire to kill or roll back the ACA. Since taking office in Jan. 2017, President Trump has slashed marketing budgets for ACA-funded state exchanges, winnowed the exchanges’ open enrollment time periods, and eliminated the individual health care mandate.

Despite such federal pressures, Access Health CT continues to grow each year, enrolling 114,000 people on subsidized Anthem or ConnectiCare health insurance plans in 2017. Michel said he hopes that the state exchange will exceed that number in 2018. This summer, the state’s Insurance Department announced that average rate increases of only 3 percent.

“We still are fighting tooth and nail to preserve the Affordable Care Act,” Blumenthal said. ​“Even after this evidence, even with this factual evidence that is undeniable, some of my colleagues still oppose the Affordable Care Act. The hard truth is: we are winning this battle. We are winning it because people are using this important service.”

“Connecticut’s the national gold standard,” he continued, ​“and we ought to work hard continue supporting these great centers.”

The senators and Michel pointed to Project Access as just such a service that is helping Access Health CT thrive and helping low-income Connecticut residents get health insurance.

Project Access Executive Director Darcey Cobbs-Lomax (a former New Haven city government social-services director) explained that the nonprofit serves as a vital connector between low-income, primarily Spanish speaking residents of Greater New Haven and urgent specialty healthcare providers. Project Access does not provide any medical care on site, she said, but rather helps patients navigate the complex healthcare system, work through social barriers around language, housing, and transportation, and connect patients in a timely and medically appropriate manner to special providers for everything from surgery to imaging studies.

Project Access also serves as an Access Health CT enrollment center, she said. Damaris Velez, who runs the nonprofit’s program enrollment center, said Project Access has four full-time employees and one part-time employee specifically dedicated to helping clients sign up for insurance plans on Access Health CT.

Last year, she said, Project Access enrolled 45 families on insurance plans through the state health insurance exchange. So far this year, she said, Project Access has enrolled 25 families from the Greater New Haven area.

One of those enrollees is Billy Nunes, a 33-year-old West Haven man who was recently laid off after 15 years working for a West Haven property management company.

“I’m running out of time,” Nunes said about why he walked into Project Access on Friday to enroll for health insurance.

One long-time client of Project Access, Rafael Crespo, said he has not yet signed up for an insurance plan through Access Health CT because even with the subsidies, he cannot afford a monthly deductible. Crespo, 60, said he was laid off by the Board of Education four years ago after spending 20 years working for the school system. His most recent job, he said, was as head custodian at Edgewood School.

Crespo said his Board of Ed-provided insurance ended six months after he was laid off, and, three months after he lost his job, he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

He said he comes to Project Access to work with patient navigators who help connect him with specialty healthcare providers he can afford to see. He said he is still uninsured, but hoping to find a plan on the state exchange soon.

Click here to enroll on an insurance plan through Access Health CT before the Dec. 15 deadline.

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch a brief press conference that the Murphy, Blumenthal, Michel, and State Rep. Pat Dillon held at Project Access on Friday.