With its array of services, the walk-in clinic on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn is a one-stop shop for the health needs of the working poor.
And whether it’s the patients who receive treatment here, or the staff who provide it, almost everyone says they plan to vote for President Barack Obama on November 6.
The patients — almost all Hispanics, mostly from the Dominican Republic — say their health concerns are a key factor in backing the Democratic incumbent’s quest for a second term in the White House.
“Democrats help more low-income people” than Republicans, said Julia Nieves, in the waiting room of the red-brick storefront clinic run by Medspan Associates that is sandwiched between a beauty salon and a grocery store.
Born in the Dominican Republic but now a US citizen, the 60-year-old suffers from diabetes, cholesterol and hypertension, in addition to other ailments.
She takes insulin three times a day to regulate her blood sugar levels and says that without the expensive medications paid for by the US government’s health coverage programs for the elderly and the poor — known as Medicare and Medicaid — she likely “would be dead.”
Dominican-born Jose Rodriguez, meanwhile, said his backing of Obama reflects his preference for the party that does more for minorities.
“Republicans do not like Hispanics,” the 76-year-old said before a routine visit.
The former grocer, who receives a $600 monthly pension, said he is currently in relatively good health, but has had to have three hernia operations on his back — none of which he could have paid for without Medicare and Medicaid.
The cost of the US government health care programs has almost always been a contentious issue in the United States but never more so than in the 2012 election. That’s because Obama made health care reform the central domestic policy achievement of his presidency.
Passed in 2010 and dubbed “Obamacare” by some, the measure has the goal of making medical care more affordable and more accessible to millions of Americans.
But Republicans in Congress, as well as Obama’s challenger, Mitt Romney, have vowed to repeal the measure at all cost.
“Our mission is clear: If we want to get rid of ‘Obamacare’ we’re going to have to replace President Obama,” Romney said on the campaign trail this summer — a line he has since often repeated on the stump.
Several Republican state officials took their challenge of the measure all the way to the US Supreme, which ultimately upheld most of the law as constitutional.
The legislation, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, would make health insurance mandatory for almost all citizens and prevent insurers from refusing health coverage to people with known medical problems.
The measure has yet to be fully implemented. And if Republicans get their way, it may never be.
Dismissing Obama’s reforms as socialized medicine, Republicans prefer a voucher system that patients could use to purchase medical care at the health care provide of their choice.
A Romney win of the White House, coupled with a Republican majority in the the US House of Representatives, could make repealing the bill a real possibility.
But Sixto Caro, who founded the Medspan clinic, sees serious problems with Republican counter proposals.
“The Republican campaign promises they will keep the right of the patient to choose their doctor, but if their (voucher) budget runs out they’ll be obligated to go to a cheaper medical provider,” he said.
“Doctors like me will be obligated to cut the Medicaid patient,” Caro added, noting that many will instead seek help in hospital emergency rooms for lack of anywhere else to go.
“It is better to fix the aspects of the ‘Obamacare’ law that are deficient or that the American people don’t like,” rather than getting rid of it altogether, he said.
Caro noted that treatment received in a hospital emergency rooms is the least cost-effective option.
At his facility, a basic visit comes to $50 but “if a patient goes to the hospital, it will be $750.”
For voters at Brooklyn health clinic, Obama a clear pick
