Amy Rosenthal, the Executive Director of Health Care For All, works with her team to move the needle on health care policy, pushing for more affordability and access. The organization also is in the trenches in delivering outreach, especially as the Covid epidemic created a health care crisis. Health Care For All’s helpline delivers assistance in many languages, and as Rosenthal explained to MassNonprofit News’ George Donnelly, the helpline also brings valuable real-world insight to the organization.
Health Care For All has been on the frontlines of the Covid epidemic. Tell me what you’ve done and what’s next?
We were one of the two subcontractors [for a state-funded vaccine outreach program]. There were 20 hardest-hit communities that were identified by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. We worked in nine of the 20. And so we knocked on 500,000 doors, hiring about 60 people from the communities in which we worked to do that door knocking, and then we also gave away close to a million dollars in local community grants for community groups. Last year, the state legislature allocated $5 million for us for another campaign around keeping people insured on their MassHealth coverage. Once the public health emergency ends, there’s 2.2 million people on MassHealth and most of them are going to have to go through a reapplication process, and that’s going to be very challenging.
To read the full article, click here.