(Marianna Hauglie/DD)
Burton Barr Central Library will be extending its healthcare informational sessions until Dec. 11 and will restart the sessions in January.
The library has been offering one-on-one sessions with a healthcare navigator every Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., as well as general informational sessions Wednesdays from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. and by appointment.
The days and times of the January 2014 sessions are still being determined, Burton Barr Adult Services Coordinator Kathy Husser said.
While the Dec. 23 deadline to apply for health insurance and avoid a coverage gap is fast approaching, attendance at these sessions has been light. Janet Viloria, the healthcare navigator who runs the Monday and Wednesday sessions, said she believes turnout will pick up in the weeks right before the deadline.
Viloria said the holiday season and negative media coverage of the Affordable Care Act and its labored rollout is partly to blame for the low attendance.
“There are kinks that need to be worked out, but what they’re trying to do with the marketplace has shown success in other areas and I think that it has a lot of potential. It’s just going to take a little while for people to adapt to it,” Viloria said.
Viloria acknowledged that the Obama administration should have had a better system in place to accommodate the reported 2.8 million people who visited healthcare.gov on its opening day. But she also recognized that mistakes were inherent in any effort as monumental as restructuring the healthcare system, and she sees great potential in the Affordable Care Act.
“When you are implementing something that’s going to affect every single person, it’s going to be hard, and you are going to run into a lot of errors, especially within the first year of doing something,” Viloria said.
For some, the best way to calm the uneasiness of shopping for health insurance is to simply go through the process with someone beside them to answer questions and explain any unfamiliar jargon, Viloria said. This is what Viloria aims to do in every one-on-one health care application session she conducts.
Among those Viloria has helped navigate through the application process is Patricia-Anne Johnson, a professor of Theology and Philosophy at Estrella Mountain Community College.
“For my teaching experience of 20 years as a professor, I would vouch that students learn better face-to-face. I think people, in general, do much better when they have contact, especially if they’re learning something new — and this is clearly new,” Johnson said.
Like Viloria, Johnson said she was not surprised by the difficulties people encountered during the rollout process, and she fully backs the Affordable Care Act.
“I will defend this effort by President Obama as long as I have breath because I think we need some kind of affordable healthcare program inside the United States of America.”
But critics have voiced privacy concerns over one-on-one sessions where applicants are expected to disclose personal information to navigators who are not federally required to undergo criminal background checks.
Viloria said she gives each of her applicants a consent form to read and sign, which outlines their rights during the session as a protective measure. Additionally, all navigators are given an identification number certifying that they have completed all necessary training. Navigators are instructed to let applicants enter in all information on their own to keep them liable and in control.
“I think some people just want to sit and talk with somebody,” said Viloria, adding that “Sometimes just answering those questions and directing them to the marketplace website allows them to say, ‘Okay, I can do that.’”
Contact the reporter at Kristy.Westgard@asu.edu
