Hispanic Outreach Fuels CT Health Care Push

Cheila Serrano knows educating Hispanics who are uninsured and underinsured about the new options available at Access Health CT – the health insurance marketplace that opens for business today – presents a unique set of problems.

But with one in every four Hispanics lacking coverage, Serrano, a program director at Junta for Progressive Action in New Haven, is up for the challenge. Connecticut’s Hispanics represent the fastest-growing, youngest and poorest segment of the state’s population. Estimates of Connecticut’s uninsured vary. Approximately 344,000 people lack health insurance in Connecticut and 65 percent of the state’s uninsured are minorities, according to data being used by Access Health. Estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September, however, put the uninsured at 284,000.