Health: National Farmworker Awareness Week 2017

Day 5 of National Farmworker Awareness Week focuses on farmworker health.  Farmworker Justice has been working to protect  farmworkers' access to health care through close monitoring of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the impacts any changes would have for farmworkers. 

Current efforts to replace the Affordable Care Act threaten to roll back important gains in health insurance coverage achieved for farmworkers and their families. By increasing costs for young, rural, low-income individuals, the failed American Health Care Act (AHCA) would have substantially reduced access to health insurance for farmworkers and their families.

The AHCA’s provisions, including eliminating the employer mandate, modifying the eligibility for tax credits, ending Medicaid expansion, and modifying the structure of Medicaid, would have left many farmworkers with higher costs and fewer options for health insurance. Lawfully present farmworkers, especially H-2A workers, would have lost their access to affordable health insurance due to the bill’s proposed changes in immigrant eligibility for tax credits. The AHCA proposed restricting eligibility for tax credits to individuals who met the “qualified alien” definition under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).

The ACA has provided farmworkers and their families a level of access to health insurance coverage that was previously unattainable.  While the ACA can be improved, efforts to eliminate provisions such as income-based subsidies, immigrant eligibility, Essential Health Benefits, and Medicaid expansion, will only impede access to health care to farmworker families. Farmworkers need greater, not reduced access to affordable health care.

Day 5 of National Farmworker Awareness Week focuses on farmworker health.  Farmworker Justice has been working to protect  farmworkers' access to health care through close monitoring of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the impacts any changes would have for farmworkers. 

Current efforts to replace the Affordable Care Act threaten to roll back important gains in health insurance coverage achieved for farmworkers and their families. By increasing costs for young, rural, low-income individuals, the failed American Health Care Act (AHCA) would have substantially reduced access to health insurance for farmworkers and their families.

The AHCA’s provisions, including eliminating the employer mandate, modifying the eligibility for tax credits, ending Medicaid expansion, and modifying the structure of Medicaid, would have left many farmworkers with higher costs and fewer options for health insurance. Lawfully present farmworkers, especially H-2A workers, would have lost their access to affordable health insurance due to the bill’s proposed changes in immigrant eligibility for tax credits. The AHCA proposed restricting eligibility for tax credits to individuals who met the “qualified alien” definition under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).

The ACA has provided farmworkers and their families a level of access to health insurance coverage that was previously unattainable.  While the ACA can be improved, efforts to eliminate provisions such as income-based subsidies, immigrant eligibility, Essential Health Benefits, and Medicaid expansion, will only impede access to health care to farmworker families. Farmworkers need greater, not reduced access to affordable health care.