Our objective is to: ENSURE ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR MINNESOTA LATINOS AND ADVANCE HEALTH EQUITY

Legislative Agenda: MCLA supports legislation that will promote the health and wellbeing of Minnesota Latinos by increasing access to health insurance and affordable care, along with expanding culturally and linguistically competent health care services.

Important Legislation in 2017: MCLA supported the Spoken Language Health Care Interpreters’ Registry System Bill.

Bill number? Senate File 1708 & House File 2023

Why should there be a registry of spoken language health care interpreters? Interpretation reduces disparities in health care outcomes for patients with limited English proficiency and decreases medical cost inefficiencies in diagnoses and treatments.

What will the bill do? The Spoken Language Health Care Interpreters’ Registry System Bill will replace the current interpreter roster with a registry that verifies interpreters either have national certification in interpretation or that they have sufficient English language, medical terminology, and completion of an interpretation training course.

What has MCLA done?

• MCLA worked with two other ethnic councils to find authors for the bill in the House and succeeded; House. Rep. Ilhan Omar was the main author, and Reps. Anthony Albright and Nick Zerwas were co-authors.
• MCLA also met with chairs of various committees in the House of Representatives to summarize the bill to make it more accessible to legislators.
• MCLA worked with the Interpreting Stakeholder Group (ISG) to propose new language that would satisfy a broader spectrum of stakeholders.

What was the outcome? The bill was introduced in the House and the Senate, and it had one hearing in the Senate Health and Human Services Finance & Policy Committee, but it did not move forward.

Other Efforts: MCLA provided testimony to support the Department of Human Services’ safety network policy and services for low income families, children, and vulnerable individuals. MCLA also supported an equity policy in DHS’ departments. In addition, to increase health insurance options at lower costs, MCLA supported the MinnesotaCare Buy-In Option.