by Allan Appel | Aug 5, 2013 2:24 pm

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If Bev Levy, who recently lost her hair as she fights ovarian cancer, didn’t have insurance, she wouldn’t be able to get it—because her disease would be considered a pre-existing condition. That will change come January, when Obamacare kicks in.

“Women have the most to gain or lose if the ACA [Affordable Care Act] is not implemented,” said U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who introduced Levy at the Fair Haven Community Health Center (FHCHC) on Grand Avenue Monday morning.

The occasion was a press conference to highlight the positive impact of the ACA, aka Obamacare, on women, especially as they address issues like pregnancy and cancer detection and treatment. DeLauro also spoke about the push to spread the work about the ACA’s new “health insurance exchanges.”

Levy, who’s been fighting the cancer for three years, lives in Woodbridge and is well covered by insurance from working at AT&T for 30 years and teaching at Quinnipiac University for five years.

“My health care costs last year were $1 million,” she said. If she should lose her coverage between now and Jan. 1, she’d be in huge trouble. But afterwards, with the new provisions, “I can’t be denied due to a pre-existing condition,” she said.

Levy’s testimonial elicited applause.

When DeLauro, who herself is a survivor of ovarian cancer, returned to the dais, she leaned toward reporters and FHCHC staff in the audience, and spoke in whisper of hushed urgency: “What do people [like Levy, but without insurance] do? Do you just die?”

DeLauro said the community health centers across the country are essential not only for care but for getting the word out about enrolling in “health insurance exchanges” to be set up as part of the law. The exchanges will serve as government-run marketplaces for various health care plans. They are required to be up and running in all 50 states by Jan. 1.

Last month DeLauro announced a grant to four centers across the state, including $104,000 to FHCH, that will support staff getting the word out and signing up people currently without insurance.

FHCHC’s Women’s Health Team leader Kate Mitcheom, a 30-year veteran at the center, said the funding will be used to get the word out and sign people up right in the clinic as they wait for care.

DeLauro said she is confident enough people will sign up to make the exchanges work.

Demian Fontanella was on hand from the state’s Office of the Healthcare Advocate, which is responsible for implementing the law in Connecticut. He said hundreds of “assisters” and “navigators,” that is, trained staffers from organizations like FHCHC or members of the many trusted churches statewide, are finishing their training to help people enroll, either online or in person.

They will augment a media campaign that has already begun but will ramp up next month. There will also be storefronts in several Connecticut cities, including New Haven, where people can walk in, be guided in the process, and sign up, Fontanella said.

He said he he did not not yet know the location of the storefront in town.

Currently if you are a woman on the individual market for insurance, there is only one policy available in the entire state that covers maternity expenses, he said.

When the exchange kicks in, all policies will have to cover maternity and pre-natal care.

DeLauro said the absence of such coverage has been “mindless” because it is universally accepted that good pre-natal care leads to good outcomes.

She called dealing recently with the 40th attempt to repeal Obamacare, which occurred last week in the House of Representatives, “shenanigans.”

“We’re going to make sure it works,” she said.

DeLauro’s next steps to get the word out include meeting later this week with Hispanic pastors. She said she is also looking into organizing a small business fair in September where peoples’ questions can be answered, and enrollees signed up on the spot.