CULTIVATING FARMWORKER HEALTH: INVESTIGATING A NEW ERA OF THE MEDI-CAL INSURANCE PROGRAM AMONG CALIFORNIA FARMWORKERS

Abstract

Over the last nine years, California has come a long way in its efforts to expand state-sponsored Medi-Cal benefits through its Health for All campaign. The campaign aimed to expand full-scope healthcare coverage to ensure that all Californians, regardless of immigration status, would have access to healthcare through this state reform. For the first time, unauthorized Californians could seek full-scope coverage without worrying that being labeled as ‘ineligible immigrant’ would prevent them from being considered, including California’s farmworker population, of which three-fourths are unauthorized. Access to the healthcare coverage can create a much-needed health safety net for California’s unauthorized farmworker population who have been historically been excluded from healthcare reforms, living with disproportionately poor health outcomes and lack of quality care. With ths advent of the full-scope Medi-Cal expansions, I conducted ethnographic research in agricultural communities in California’s Central Valley, specifically the San Joaquin region, among 40 farmworkers seeking to secure access to specialized health care services provided by Medi-Cal. My objective was to learn how farmworkers are, most of them without solid legal standing, navigating the bureaucratic requirements needed to receive Medi-Cal assistance. This senior thesis is an investigation and documentation of their described reality experiencing the reverberating threads of exclusion encoded in the roadblocks they encountered at the application and renewal step.