WASHINGTON (July 10, 2013) — The Obama administration is awarding $150 million to nearly 1,200 community healthcare centers across the U.S. to teach uninsured Americans about the Affordable Healthcare Act (AHA) and help them sign up for coverage.
The grants will help community health centers to nearly double their AHA outreach efforts, said Mary Wakefield, administrator for the Health Resources and Services Administration, at a July 10 press conference.
The money will go toward hiring nearly 3,000 community health outreach workers, boosting technical support and providing bilingual outreach materials, according to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Up to 3.7 million uninsured Americans will be reached through this effort, she said.
President Obama signed the Affordable Healthcare Act into law in March 2010. On July 2 of this year, the Obama administration announced it would postpone implementing the "employer mandate" provision of the law, in which employers with more than 50 workers would be penalized for failing to provide minimum healthcare coverage.
The provision was supposed to become effective in 2014, but now will be postponed one year, until 2015.