Case Study #2 – Immigrant Health Insurance

The challenge

As Congress reauthorized the Children’s Health Insurance Program in 2009 to provide affordable children’s health insurance to 700,000 eligible children in Florida, the Florida legislature passed a bill requiring children of lawfully residing immigrant families to wait 5 years before being eligible to receive this federally subsidized health coverage. This specifically contradicted federal law that permits lawfully residing children to receive coverage. This affects an estimated 25,000 children in Florida.

In 2013 a new bill was filed that will eliminate the 5 year wait for lawfully residing families. I want to assist others to organize and get the bill passed by the House Health Innovations Committee, the first Committee to hear the proposed legislation Spring 2014.

The approach

I organized and led a team of agencies and leaders that worked to get a key House member to consider supporting

this bill.  Rep. Jason Brodeur, (R) Seminole County is Chair of the House Health Innovations Committee and his committee must vote on the bill before it goes to any other committees and the House floor. He must agree to have the bill heard in Committee or the bill will die. I took the following steps:

1. To see what will get Rep. Broader to put the bill n the agenda of his committee and support, I did an analysis of provider and advocacy organizations in Brodeur’s district and identified Hispanic Health Initiatives as a excellent group to approach Brodeur.
2. Their director and pulled together some of their volunteers to learn about the bill and agree to meet with Broader.
3. Five people met with  Rep. Brodeur and pushed not only the healthcare advantages of passing the bill, but also the moral point that family’s here legally, pay taxes and work should enjoy the same eligibility criteria of US citizens.
4. Brodeur, after being reminded that the growing Latino community is 18% of county population, was invited to meet members at a local Latino church in Sanford.

How did our role make an important difference?

• For the first time Rep. Brodeur had a conversation about the bill with his own constituents and this made him accountable.
• Brodeur does not have a close relationship with the Latino community. The meeting gives him a path to get Latino support and greater likelihood that he will support eliminating the 5 year wait.
• Rep. Brodeur is now committed to additional contact with the community when he attends a meeting at their church and hears their testimony in Tallahassee.

The result 

Rep. Brodeur agreed that the bill is good policy and only needs certainty on reasonable costs. The bill unanimously passed the Florida House Health Innovations Committee February 12. The Latino community is now in relationship with Broader and there is ongoing meetings to hold him accountable leading up to the hearing. Broader also volunteered to call the Rep. Diaz, the bill sponsor to share the meeting; always a good sign.