Health Care Website Frustrates Spanish Speakers

Article by RUSSELL CONTRERAS and KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press, 1-12-14. Excerpts:

"Mirroring problems with the federal health care website, people around the nation attempting to navigate the Spanish version have discovered their own set of difficulties.

The site, CuidadoDeSalud.gov, launched more than two months late.

A Web page with Spanish instructions linked users to an English form.

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 "for the caution of health."

"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.

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."

"efforts to enroll Spanish-speakers have fallen short in several states with large Hispanic populations"

"In California, officials have acknowledged the need for improvements, saying fewer than 5,500 people signed up for health care in Spanish in October and November"

"In New Mexico, the state with the nation's highest percentage of Latino residents and where more than 20 percent of the state's population goes without health insurance, fewer than 1,000 people total signed up for coverage in October and November."