Many Latinos are being left out of the first wave of coverage under the new health insurance program because multiple glitches in the Spanish version of the website have made it difficult, or impossible, to enroll, experts say. <\/p>\n
The site, CuidadoDeSalud.gov, launched more than two months late. <\/p>\n
A Web page with Spanish instructions linked users to an English form. <\/p>\n
And the translations were so clunky and full of grammatical mistakes that critics say they must have been computer-generated the name of the site itself can literally be read \"be careful of health.\" <\/p>\n
\"When you get into the details of the plans, it's not all written in Spanish. It's written in Spanglish, so we end up having to translate it for them,\" said Adrian Madriz, a health care navigator who helps with enrollment in Miami. <\/p>\n
The issues with the site underscore the halting efforts across the nation to get Spanish-speakers enrolled under the federal health care law. Critics say that as a result of various problems, including those related to the website, many people whom the law was designed to help have been left out of the first wave of coverage. <\/p>\n
Slightly more than 30 percent of Latinos who number 53 million in the United States lack health care coverage. In surveys of Latino adults, a majority indicate support for the Affordable Care Act. <\/p>\n
Federal officials say they have been working to make the site better and plan further improvements soon. Also, administrators say they welcome feedback and try to fix typos or other errors quickly. <\/p>\n
\"We launched consumer-friendly Spanish online enrollment tools on CuidadoDeSalud.gov in December which represents one more way for Latinos to enroll in Marketplace plans,\" said Health and Human Services Department spokesman Richard Olague in an email to The Associated Press. \"Since the soft-launch, we continue to work closely with key stakeholders to get feedback in order to improve the experience for those consumers that use the website.\" <\/p>\n
Still, efforts to enroll Spanish-speakers have fallen short in several states with large Hispanic populations, and critics say the translated version of HealthCare.gov could have helped boost those numbers. <\/p>\n
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Health care website frustrates Spanish speakers- RUBIO: Why Sebelius, Congress should take ObamaCare bailout off the ...<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many Latinos are being left out of the first wave of coverage under the new health insurance program because multiple glitches in the Spanish version of the website have made it difficult, or impossible, to enroll, experts say. The site, CuidadoDeSalud.gov, launched more than two months late. Continue reading