Washington, D.C., Latino Population Will Continue To Receive Care, City Health Chief Says

Washington, D.C.'s immigrant and Latino communities have "benefited significantly" from the D.C. Healthcare Alliance, the city's indigent health care system, and will continue to receive care despite recent financial troubles, according to D.C. Health Department Director James Buford, the Washington Post reports. Buford said that the alliance, whose "core constituency" is low-income immigrants who are ineligible for other government aid, is "alive and well" and will continue to thrive for "many months and years" (Hsu, Washington Post, 12/8). Last week, the city's Department of Health announced that it will assume control of the health alliance, also stating that Greater Southeast Community Hospital, the primary facility for people in the system who require hospitalization or trauma care, will be removed as the leader of the alliance for at least six months and possibly for years. Greater Southeast filed for bankruptcy last month after its parent company, Doctors Community Healthcare, also filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 20. Doctors Community's filing followed the collapse of health care lender National Century Financial Enterprises, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November because it owed approximately $3.6 billion to bondholders, large money-management firms that buy bonds and other creditors. Doctors Community is the general contractor for the D.C. Healthcare Alliance (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 12/5).

'Rising Plea' among Latinos
The Post reports that there is a "rising plea" among the city's Latino population for "continued, subsidized access" to physicians, translators, pharmacies, specialists and hospitals throughout the city. According to Meredith Josephs, medical director of La Clinica del Pueblo, a not-for-profit clinic that provides free health care in the city, the alliance has brought a "wonderful, tremendous change," providing health coverage to 50% to 75% of the clinic's 4,500 patients, who had little access to health care before the alliance's formation. Nieves Zaldivar, the alliance medical director for D.C. Chartered Health Plan, said that the alliance serves approximately 2,900 Latino patients, or 11% of the plan's 28,000 members, and an additional 800 have applied for coverage. Washington, D.C., has about 65,000 uninsured residents (Washington Post, 12/8).