The Homeless and Access to Health Care

For the homeless, federal changes promise better access to health care, By Mary Agnes Carey and Andrew Villegas, August 20, 2010, Washington Post: “Homeless and unemployed, Tianne Hill said she dreads getting mail at the city shelter on Guilford Avenue where she lives because it often includes medical bills she can’t pay. The 40-year-old former waitress and short-order cook owes about $6,000 for abdominal surgery. She’s expecting another bill soon for emergency treatment of a seizure. And she has other conditions that require expensive care: asthma, arthritis, anxiety and depression. Like many other homeless people, Hill is uninsured and ineligible for Medicaid, the state-federal program that covers millions of other poor Americans. But beginning in 2014, Medicaid greatly expands under the new health-care law to include adults without children, who generally have been excluded. The Medicaid expansion also will enable agencies that serve the homeless to divert resources now spent on medical care to other services such as finding housing and jobs. The new law provides another boost through a five-year, $11 billion expansion of the community health center system that treats many in this population…”