Lao
Assistance Center of Minnesota (LACM) in partnership with the Southeast Asia
Resource Action Center (SEARAC) is working on reducing the health disparities
of the Southeast Asian refugees and immigrants, mainly in the local level we focus
on the Lao community. Lao Assistance Center of Minnesota’s healthcare campaign
team works hard on advocate for the access
to the public health care assistances for the low income, retired elders,
disable, and those that temporary unemployed.
In 2011, our
advocacy team has been working on educating the Lao community in all around the
twin cities area on access to the public health care assistance, such as Medicare,
Medicaid, Minnesota Health Care Program, and other low premium medical care programs. Our goal is to ensure that the Lao community
members understand their rights on access to health care and what process would
it take for them to get a health care assistance. Most importantly, we have
been identifying the issues and barriers that preventing the Lao refugees and
immigrants from enrolling in public health care program and paying low or
affordable monthly premium.
In this
coming year, the Lao Assistance Center of Minnesota will continue advocate for
the access to the public and low monthly premium health care for the Southeast
Asian and the Lao communities. In the state and national level, our main focus
will be advocate for the “Affordable Care Act”
Affordable
Care Act is a part of the health care reform campaign that was signed into law
by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The protection of Affordable Care
Act will expand access, increase consumer protections and improve health care
quality with early 18.6% of Southeast Asian Americans uninsured, 31% with some
form of public health coverage and 53.9% with private health insurance. The ACA
will dramatically improve delivery of health care for all level of coverage.