Advancing Health Equity in Health Care Coverage: A Public-Private Partnership to Engage Underserved Communities in...

Expanding Medicaid coverage has been demonstrated to reduce health inequities by allowing people with low income to access health care at little or no cost. However, reaching eligible populations to get them enrolled can be difficult. Two private health foundations, one national and one local, worked with a late-adopting Medicaid expansion state to help accelerate enrollment through support of a broad communications campaign coupled with targeted local outreach and enrollment assistance provided by community-based organizations and data analyses to assess program impact and inform evidence-based state policy and program changes. This article presents results from a qualitative evaluation of this funding partnership and describes the culturally nuanced strategies employed by community-based grantees to raise awareness and enroll new immigrants, migrant workers, tribal communities, rural residents, and other under-enrolled groups. We also discuss how the evaluation helped inform broader state policies and replicability of the model in other late-adopting expansion states.