DUNN, N.C. (AP) – Some seasonal agricultural workers were finishing a meal after a long day of planting sweet potato seeds when Julie Pittman pulled into to their camp.
Up since dawn, they had worked through an 80-degree day that was just beginning to cool off. Now, Pittman, a paralegal with the Farmworker Unit of Legal Aid of North Carolina, wanted to get their attention.
The health care law passed in 2010 requires you to have health insurance, she told them in Spanish. If you don’t get it, she said, you could be fined.
“Cuánto cuesta?” said one worker, wanting to know the cost.
These farmworkers, living in the United States legally through the H-2A visa program, must be insured, like most U.S. citizens and legal residents. But reaching them is an uphill battle. They live in cinder block homes built by employers in isolated areas. They work long days, and often, a full week.