Expanding Health Care Coverage

Project Title

Health Care Access Initiative

Grant Amount

$115,000

Priority Area

Expanding Health Care Coverage

Date Awarded

October 7, 2013

Region

Long Island

Status

Closed

Website

http://www.lgbtnetwork.org/

The Affordable Care Act presented an enormous opportunity to expand health care coverage to uninsured and underinsured New Yorkers, making coverage more affordable and more accessible than ever before.

However, direct assistance and face-to-face support to help individuals complete health insurance enrollment applications would be needed to ensure the success of insurance expansion. To address this issue, NYHealth launched the Enrollment Network in time for the first open enrollment period beginning in October 2013. Although the Enrollment Network supports a diverse set of organizations across the State to serve all New Yorkers, it places a particular emphasis on reaching three important populations: low-wage workers; immigrants; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. NYHealth awarded The LGBT Network (formerly the Long Island GLBT Services Network) a grant to participate during the first two years of this initiative.

Grant Goals

Enrollment Network grantees set out to accomplish the following goals:

  • Perform education and outreach activities to spread awareness about the ACA and newly available health insurance options; and
  • Assist with enrolling individuals and employees of small businesses into public and private health insurance offered on the Marketplace, specifically targeting vulnerable populations.

Grant Outcome Highlights

Some of the outcomes Enrollment Network grantees achieved include:

  • Performed a wide variety of outreach and education;
  • Completed or partially completed 17,777 enrollment applications during the first two open enrollment periods. The Enrollment Network served 22,823 individuals throughout the grant period;
  • Enrolled disproportionately uninsured populations, enrolling 6,313 immigrants, 4,776 low-wage workers, and 1,212 LGBT individuals; and
  • Enrolled uninsured individuals of racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds: 49% Latino/Hispanic, 21% Asian/Pacific Islanders, and 9% African-American.

Read the full report associated with this grant, “The NYHealth Enrollment Network: Expanding Health Insurance Access for New Yorkers.”

NYHealth awarded the Network a second grant to continue these efforts in 2015.

See a full list of all 2014 Enrollment Network grantees.