The NC Farmworkers’ Project is pleased to announce that we have received a grant to increase health insurance coverage to farmworkers in five counties in Eastern NC from 2019-2020 from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The project is a continuation of our work assisting farmworkers to enroll in insurance plans provided through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) since 2016. We will help more than 200 farmworkers enroll in insurance each year, as well as providing follow-up to help farmworkers maintain their insurance and engaging them in a popular education curriculum to ensure that they understand the benefits of their plans and how to use their insurance. In addition to $209,972 from Kate B. Reynolds, other supporters of this work include the NC Hospital Association, the NC Farmworker Health Program (supporting insurance education), and individual donors.
“It is so important that farmworkers who qualify have insurance coverage, because it helps make care affordable for them and means that they are more likely to seek care and be able to manage chronic conditions,” says Neissly Tapia, an outreach worker with the NC Farmworkers’ Project’s ACA program. Since 2016, the Farmworkers’ Project has helped farmworkers who qualify enroll in insurance plans through the Marketplace, which usually cost farmworkers between $0-$20/month. Each year, we have helped around 200 farmworkers enroll in plans, maintain and pay for their plans, and learn how to use them.
Farmworkers have seen the benefits of insurance as they have noticed much lower medication costs ($20/month for an inhaler instead of $200, for example), free preventive care like physicals, and more access to specialty care. Having the ability to enroll some farmworkers in insurance plans allows us to focus resources from our health program on farmworkers who can’t qualify. This means that more workers overall have access to health care that they can afford.
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The Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust was established in 1947 and is now one of the largest private trusts in North Carolina. Its mission is to improve the qualify of life and quality of health for the financially needy of North Carolina. The Health Care Division promotes wellness state-wide by investing in prevention and treatment. The Poor and Needy Division of the Trust responds to basic life needs and invests in solutions that improve the quality of life and health for financially needy residents of Forsyth County. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. serves as sole trustee.
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