Center for Medicare Education Grant Fosters Medicare Outreach for Seattle’s Asian Population

To overcome cultural and language barriers preventing seniors in Seattle's Asian community from accessing services available to them under Medicare, the Center for Medicare Education, a not-for-profit organization funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has launched a joint education program with the Seattle-based National Asian Pacific Center on Aging, the Puget Sound Business Journal reports. The outreach program took about one year to develop and had to overcome "major hurdle[s]," including cultural differences, language barriers and some community members' distrust of government programs. With the CME $10,000 grant, NAPCA has developed print and broadcast advertisements and community presentations that offer "basic explanations" of Medicare coverage in eight languages. Program organizers initially have targeted Filipinos and a few other groups but eventually plan to "target all Asian groups." Angelo Locksin of NAPCA said, "It is taken for granted by people who live and work in [the United States] that Medicare is an insurance program for when you retire. But that is not an understanding that new immigrants have." He added, "We've found we'll fail to get the message across if we don't talk about exactly what Medicare is" (Taylor, Puget Sound Business Journal, 5/10).