Health Concerns for Mexican Migrants in Central Florida: Collaborations with the Sending State via Mobile Consulates and Hometown Associations

Abstract

Contemporary debates on health and immigration reform often display a lack of understanding of how limited health care access can aggravate problems and contribute to major disparities. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, designed to ensure broader health insurance coverage for populations across the United States, is likely to actually reduce access to care for many immigrants by isolating them from the general, formerly uninsured, population (Arredondo et al. 2012; Bustamante et al. 2012; Zuckerman, Waidmann, and Lawton 2011). These changes will become increasingly relevant to practicing and applied anthropologists working in health care settings and seeking to ameliorate the impact of potentially reduced resources. Anthropologists must be attentive to these shifting processes of care-giving and seeking that impact vulnerable populations (Horton et al. 2014) and help to identify and propose solutions for the future.