Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/180498
Sarasota News Leader September 27, 2013 the part of conservative lawmakers and activists to discourage Americans from participating in the new marketplaces. One already notorious ad, featuring a man in a menacing Uncle Sam costume, playing gynecologist, explicitly encourages young Americans not to use the new online marketplaces. The organization running the clip, Generation Opportunity, received $5 million from a group with ties to the Koch brothers. To counter all that, healthcare organizations are hitting the pavement, hoping to educate Americans face-to-face about what the law actually does and how they can go about researching their options. But with 3.8 million uninsured Floridians out there — the third highest total in the nation — that's an enormous undertaking. In August, the University of South Florida (USF) won a one-year $4.2 million federal grant to oversee outreach in large swaths of the state, the largest total in Florida and the second largest nationwide. The college won't be directly hiring "navigators," the term for specialists trained to help Americans understand ObamaCare, but it will be working with consortium partners around the state to do so. Page 10 department has hired three outreach and enrollment experts who will fan out around the county to "spread the word," says Linda Stone, the CEO of the Community Health Center of North Port. Those advisors will answer questions about the ObamaCare application, and they are trained to help applicants figure out the form to file. "They will give anybody the amount of help that they request," Stone says. She calls each employee "an office on wheels," equipped with computer, printer, scanner, etc., to expedite the process. The organization also will have a presence in county libraries, the Glasser Schoenbaum Human Services Center in Sarasota, Goodwill, the Robert L. Taylor Community Complex in Newtown and more places. "It's important to underscore that people's privacy is of the utmost importance, and our employees have been vetted through the Department of Health — they've been fingerprinted," Stone says. Applicants will need to supply personal information such as a Social Security number and W-2 data, but none of that will be stored by navigators. "We will keep no identifying information at all," Stone points out. And contrary to rumors (floated even by Here in Sarasota County, the Health Planning elected officials), personal health information, Council of Southwest Florida will be impleincluding preexisting conditions, will not be menting the USF grant, hiring navigators and collected at all. putting them to work. The Planning Council is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promot- In addition to outreach, the county Health Deing efficient and cost-effective health services partment is conducting "inreach," Stone says, in a seven-county area from Sarasota south to training staffers to become application counCollier and east to Glades and Hendry. selors. They must pass tests to receive that certification. But they're not alone. The Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County also received a While the state Department of Health has spe$171,544 grant to run outreach programs. The cifically banned navigators from setting foot