Michael Dees is not impressed with what he’s seen or heard so far about the federal government’s health insurance exchanges:
“I don’t think you can see anything, especially on the internet, because, with what I’ve seen on the news, you can’t even get on the site. So what good is it to have Obamacare? I think they should just squash it, and come up with something different," he said.
For many uninsured Floridians, the federal government’s online marketplace offers an opportunity to obtain health insurance—the cost of which will be heavily subsidized. But glitches in the site have made signing up a challenge, and an increasing number of people are turning to local resources for help. As Dees, who lives in the Lafayette County town of Mayo points out, that help is proving hard to find.
“You’re just kinda in the dark there, because, from what I understand, that’s where you have to go to get your price for insurance.”
The lack of information, especially in the more rural portions of North Florida, does not surprise Elvira Akinyemi, one of a handful of people in the region who have received federal grants to assist people in the signup process.
Akinyemi is the leader of the three-person navigator team based in the Gadsden County town of Quincy, northwest of Tallahassee. The team faces resource problems. There are only a few North Florida navigators for the eight county region they cover. And the federal government’s grant only covers pays for salaries and work-related materials like laptops and travel expenses. There’s no budget for advertising to alert people how to find the navigators.
“We’re just running it with the resources we have and that’s why we’re looking to the community for any help if possible," Akinyemi said.
She and her two navigators have formed relationships with churches and towns in the rural Panhandle. But it’s not the rural areas that are the problem – it’s Tallahassee"
“I think it’s probably two fold- they see it as a political issue and a lot of people don’t want to be involved. And there are still glitches in the system, and maybe they’re concerned about the reputation or if it doesn’t go as smoothly as they hoped.”
In Tallahassee, the Bond Community Health Center’s certified application counselors are assisting with signups. They’re similar to navigators, but operate out of the community health center—that’s not to be confused with ones run by the state where navigators are banned.
“If someone were to walk in right now, we’d take them," said Bond Outreach Coordinator Sheila Brown, one of the four cetified application counselors at the center. She says her group has fielded many inquiries:
“Our job is to assist you and make sure you get signed up, receive all the information you need. If you have a question we can dial the 1-800 number [to healthcare.gov] for you, but we can’t tell you how to choose a plan, why or why not to choose a plan, that’s not our goal.”
But what the counselors don’t do at Bond is venture very far from their building. And that’s creating a gap in the system where other groups are stepping in to do “outreach”. Take the WellU Academy: it’s a group of local businesses and doctors headed by the Rogers, Gunter, Vaughn Insurance Agency, where Bart Gunter is the Vice President:
“The saddest part is, that the people who need it the most, they’re not getting the message and that’s why, as WellU, we want to move out to people, go where they are, go where they’re gathering," he said.
Unlike the certified application counselors and the navigators, insurance agents can make recommendations for purchases. They also get commissions on sales. Gunter admits the network of available assistance for uninsured people looking for answers is patchwork at best.
Many different community groups have received federal support to help people buy insurance through the federal government’s exchange website. There are at least two more navigators in the region, but whether they’re actually signing people up is unclear. None of those groups is coordinating efforts with the others. In addition, many of the local contacts listed on the healthcare.gov website are wrong. As a result, Akinyemi feels her region is getting left behind:
“I think honestly, the panhandle is getting lost, because it’s just rural, and we don’t have all the resources.”
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