As you may have heard, Community Partners has made the decision to close our doors and suspend our work as of December 31, 2009. We are not out of ideas or energy for making a better health care system in Massachusetts, and across the nation. We’re just out of funds. Read more here about our decision to close, and our thanks to our network and many partners over the years.
Western HAN members are currently waiting—for national health care reform to take shape, for the impact of state budget cuts to become clear, and for confirmation that the CeltiCare Bridge program provider network is broad enough here to begin enrolling eligible legal immigrants on December 1.
Outreach workers are concerned about how continuing financial pressures are going to affect familiar programs and shape new ones, but they’re also still full of energy and ideas about how to reach the ever-growing number of people who need their help. The evolution of a national health care reform plan is also a subject of great interest and lots of feeling.
As proposals for national health care reform were taking over the front pages, HAN outreach workers were dealing with the impact of budget cuts to our Massachusetts program made necessary by the recession. Our traditional fall guest, Health Care For All Research Director Brian Rosman, gave both our Amherst and Boston meetings additional background on this issue along with a broader view of how health care reform in Massachusetts is faring in these challenging times.
Please also see our complete September HAN meeting notes. In this section of the agenda, HAN members discussed CommCare Bridge, MassHealth dental services, the end of Commonwealth Care auto-enrollment, and community resources.
Please also see our complete September HAN meeting notes. In this section of the agenda, HAN members discussed the transition to CommCare Bridge, MassHealth's email noticing, Medicare News, and community resources.
People who lost their Commonwealth Care coverage on September 1 because they are deemed Aliens With Special Status (AWSS) will be enrolled into a new CeltiCare plan over the next few months. In the meantime, they have access to either MassHealth Limited + the Health Safety Net, or the Health Safety Net (HSN) alone.
Since the legislature decided to end Commonwealth Care eligibility for some legal immigrants as of September 1, HAN members have been fielding lots of calls from concerned and confused immigrant clients.
Our special guest was Toby Guevin, State Policy Director for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition. We discussed the categories that determine immigrants’ eligibility for health benefits; gaps and barriers to coverage; and what policy changes the future could bring.
When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted health care reform, lawmakers neglected a large segment of the population: students, like me. Currently, almost every university-offered plan fails to meet the Minimum Creditable Coverage (MCC) standards, the same standards that every health insurance plan in Massachusetts must meet.
