Language Access and Health Equity: Changes under the Affordable Care Act

Health disparities between English-proficient and limited English-proficient (LEP) groups in the United States have been widely documented. Provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including increased funding to community health centers and resources to help consumers who are purchasing Marketplace coverage afford new access to health care for speakers of languages other than English, which includes more than 60 million individuals, one-third of whom are LEP. This commentary discusses the legislative precedent for, successes of, and potential future directions for the implementation of the ACA as it relates to language access, health disparities, health equity, access to health care, and the linguistic needs of the LEP population in the United States.