NYC to Offer Low-Cost Healthcare to Illegal Immigrants

New York will become one of the first major U.S. cities to expand low-cost healthcare to uninsured illegal immigrants under a pilot program to launch next spring, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday.

The pilot, called Direct Access, will initially apply to 1,000 immigrants. Some of them are in the country legally but still ineligible for Obamacare. The program is expected to expand in the following years.

New York, with the largest foreign-born population of any U.S. city, is following similar immigrant healthcare models enacted in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Under the Direct Access program, which will cost $6 million to launch, the city will create a network of primary and preventative healthcare providers specifically for uninsured and low-income immigrants.

Many of the city’s uninsured immigrants currently seek healthcare at an emergency facility and have access to little preventative care, a spokeswoman with the mayor’s office said. Many of them lack primary doctors.

In an effort to remove some of the barriers, the city’s healthcare network will also provide information in more languages and conduct public outreach and education on the new program to immigrants.

This article appeared in print in the October 14th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.