Juan: Helping Uninsured Chicagoans Get Covered

For many, Saturday morning is a time to sleep in, eat a leisurely breakfast with the children, and relax from a long week’s work. Not so for Juan, an In Person Counselor with Heartland Alliance, charged with connecting people to health insurance they can afford. On a typical Saturday morning, dozens of people come to his community events, hoping to finally get covered. He makes it happen.

“People tell me ‘I know I have this disease, I’ve had it for years but I can’t afford to go to the doctor,’” he says of his work. “Insurance is very expensive, we all know this. Many people, they make very little money and they can’t pay for this, so their health just gets worse and worse.”

Many resisted this help getting healthcare at first. Even though people knew they needed care, many were suspicious, and when the Affordable Care Act went into effect, too many of the people most in need weren’t being reached. As the polar vortex descended on Chicago, Juan began going door to door, reaching out to areas with low enrollment rates. There’s nothing to fear, he told them. You can afford this. You don’t have to get sick, or stay sick. Let’s get you well.

“People had a lot of doubt. Insurance is very complicated and people have been burned many times before by the healthcare system. It just hasn’t worked for them,” he says. “It’s a process of building trust with people.”

So why do this difficult, slow moving work? Why, during one of Chicago’s most ferocious winters, go door to door, community to community, convincing people to believe in this system? Isn’t it enough to have given people access where before they had none? As it turns out, the human connection – someone to answer your questions, address your fears, and show you how to get what you both need and can afford – is truly the key.

“We are going where nobody has been helping people and we have the power to change peoples’ lives,” says Juan. “I met one couple, a husband and a wife, and I remember them even now. The husband worked full time, but was in a car accident, a hit and run. He was suspended from his factory job and could not work. They were both on his health insurance, which was cut off. So they had to make a choice, do they pay for the COBRA health coverage, or do they pay their mortgage? We were able to find them a very affordable health plan that could address his health needs and cover them both. That’s why we need to do this work. This family needed us, and we were there.”

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