Expanding Funding for Community Health Centers May Help Farmworkers

Newsletters - Spring 2010 Newsletter

In the United States over 17 million people rely on community health centers for access to basic health care. Serving primarily the uninsured and underinsured, these health centers receive federal funding to provide health care for clients based on a sliding scale fee. Because they are such a crucial source of health care to so many Americans, the recent health insurance overhaul and the stimulus package of 2009 gave significantly increased funding to these organizations, and the 2010 health care reform legislation includes about $11 billion over the next five years for expanded programs, facilities and services.

Community health centers, including some that are called "migrant health centers" because they receive dedicated funding to focus on farmworkers, are an important source of medical care for many farmworker families. In 2008, migrant health centers provided care to over 834,000 agricultural workers in the U.S.

The Migrant Health Program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services helps community health centers provide culturally and linguistically appropriate medical and support services for migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families. Farmworker Justice collaborates with the Migrant Clinicians Network and several other organizations to provide technical assistance to the health centers to optimize their service to farmworkers.

The health care reform legislation will expand access to Medicaid and subsidized health insurance for many low-income people. However, many farmworkers will not be eligible for those insurance programs. Some will be barred because they are undocumented immigrants, recent lawful immigrants are prohibited from receiving Medicaid for five years and many farmworkers' employers will continue to not offer workers health insurance, claiming that they are not obligated to provide it under loopholes for small businesses and companies that employ seasonal workers.

With family incomes under $20,000 per year, the cost of purchasing health insurance will be prohibitive for most farmworkers. For the hundreds of thousands of farmworkers who will not be able to obtain Medicaid or health insurance under the new legislation, the expansion of the community and migrant health centers is an important development.

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