Huge News~ Obamacare Will Bring Insurance To Oregon's Homeless [View all]

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When the Affordable Care Act goes into effect in January, most of Oregon’s homeless people will have health insurance. That means they’ll have access to drug and alcohol treatment, regular doctor visits and counseling.

Traci Manning, the director of the Portland Housing Bureau, says that will change things dramatically.

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“Having health insurance will prevent some people from becoming homeless in the first place,” Manning says. “Because if you don’t have insurance and you have a serious health care crisis, and perhaps are already struggling to make ends meet, you suddenly have a lot of bills, maybe you start missing a lot of rent. You run through your savings and for some people right now, that may be the cause of their homelessness.”

Manning says that fact that homeless people will have insurance could also free up money for other things. “There is the opportunity for services that are currently provided directly by the public to be paid for directly through Medicaid. Now, quite frankly we don’t know what all of those are yet. That is something that is still being determined.”

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“We’re very optimistic,” she says. “The city and county have made statements publicly about repurposing general fund dollars that will be relieved once people are covered by insurance and investing that in perhaps rent assistance, in housing vouchers and support services that aren’t covered by Medicaid.”

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much more..
http://www.opb.org/news/article/health-reform-will-bring-insurance-to-oregons-homeless/

h/t http://theobamadiary.com/2013/07/29/news-of-the-day-10/

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