The Department of Health and Human Services issued a new report saying that 8 in 10 uninsured Latinos may in fact be qualified for Medicaid and could save money on monthly health insurance premiums by signing up through the Health Insurance Marketplace, taking advantage of tax credits under the new health care laws, or enrolling their children in the Children's Health Insurance Program for children.

About 41.3 million individuals are uninsured but eligible for the Health Insurance Marketplace, including which 1 in 4 uninsured individuals who Latino, comprising a total of 10.2 million uninsured out of national total of 41.3 million individuals. The majority of uninsured people, a number as high as 62 percent, reside in the southern and western states of California, Texas, and Florida, and about half of those people, perhaps alarmingly, or a figure estimated to be around 4.6 million or 46 percent are between the ages of 18 and 35.

Enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplace is open until March 31 of this year. People who are interested in enrolling, not only Latinos, can use the available tools including the online government website of HealthCare.gov which is also available in Spanish at CuidadoDeSalud.gov. Additionally, people can sign up for health insurance by calling the 24/7 customer service center (1-800-318-2596, TTY 1-855-889-4325) and enrolling over the phone. Finally, it is possible to submit a paper application by mail or see a trained health care enroller in your local community, such as trained call center staff offering bilingual help, which can be found by searching through the government websites listed above.

One third of uninsured Hispanics rely on Spanish and 27 percent live in a household without an English-speaking adult present, but the remaining 63 percent of uninsured Hispanic Americans who are eligible for coverage speak English as a first language or as a second language. Consumers can create accounts, complete an online application, and shop for health plans that fit their budget and needs on CuidadodeSalud.gov. Consumers can also see detailed information about the Marketplace health insurance plans offered in their area, compare plans, benefits, physician and hospital networks, and plan prices to suit their household.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently gave a speech where she announced that "The health care law addresses longstanding inequalities that have affected minority communities across the nation, including lack of access to affordable health insurance coverage. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 10.2 million uninsured Latinos have the opportunity to purchase quality, affordable coverage through the Marketplace, and as many as 8 million of those could get a break on costs."

Sebelius is right about the inequalities in health care as new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.showed that recent African-American men incurred an additional $341.8 billion in excess medical costs due to health inequalities between 2006 and 2009 whereas Hispanic men incurred an additional $115 billion over the same four-year period, when measuring the direct and indirect costs associated with health inequalities and thereby projecting the potential cost savings of eliminating these disparities for minority men in the United States.

The lack of adequate health care becomes increasingly salient when considering that polls consistently show that Latinos see diabetes as the biggest health problem for their own families, a problem which is no doubt linked to economic status. In a Harvard School of public health poll, one in five Latinos said that diabetes is the biggest health problem facing their families, when it was cancer just a few years ago, which is the major health problem perceived by the nation as a whole.

Researchers have long cited diabetes as a threat for the nation's Latino population, including those of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, South American and Central American heritage, with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that Hispanic adults are 1.7 times more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to have been diagnosed with diabetes and 1.5 times more likely to die from diabetes.

Similarly, one in five Latinos who have received medical care during the past twelve months rate the health services they received as fair to poor, over half of all Latinos are not confident that they would have enough money or health insurance to pay for a major illness, and significant numbers of total Latinos give low ratings to quality of available housing in the area where they live, the public transportation system and availability of recreational facilities for exercise and sports.

All of these factors play a role as recent studies show that Hispanic children who play sports are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables, which is also generalizable to children at large. A report published in the American Journal of Health Promotion found that the more sports were played among boys the greater the amount of fruits and vegetables in a diet. Boys on one sports team had 1.8 times the odds of eating vegetables, while boys who played on three sports teams had a 3.4 times higher chance of eating vegetables. The same was true for the girls; evidence showed that regular recreational activities increased the likelihood of a healthier diet. The downside was that they still consumed high rates of sugar in the form of sports drinks, due to advertisements suggesting they enhance performance.

Figures show that sugar-related maladies it the top problem among all Americans, with the nation as a whole spending trillions in health care costs to remedying diseases brought about by the overconsumption of sugar. This is why the Obama administration is pushing to get vulnerable segments of the uninsured population, especially young people, women and minorities to apply to state-based health exchanges with a few weeks left to go for this calendar year.

The percentage of uninsured Latinos who would be eligible under the new Health Insurance Marketplace would increase to 95 percent if every state decided to expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Already, about 3.9 million people may be eligible for lower costs on monthly premiums and 4.2 million may be eligible for Medicaid or CHIP. A basic premium in metropolitan areas could cost as little as $87 per month for a basic plan after factoring in tax credits.

Enrollment problems exist in states with large Hispanic populations who may not know they are eligible for benefits or do not know how to seek out help in enrolling, such as in Arizona and Texas. Latinos make up more than half of the 15 percent of the country's uninsured population living in California, prompting the state to increase the dismal 20 percent who have signed up on the state-run health insurance exchange. State officials plan to increase marketing and hire Spanish-speaking staff, to increase that number by the deadline of March 31, when open enrollment in the insurance plans will end.

For the large part, Latinos embrace the change but critics blame the language barrier and fears of deportation as the culprits of low enrollment. "A lot of the issues boil down to trust -- can they trust the information they're getting and can they trust that what they give will only be used for health care," said Ellen Wu, executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. "We hear all the time of families where one parent could help their children enroll, but they fear that the information is going to be sent to immigration authorities. You've gone all this time without something, so you're not going to risk that you lose a family member just to get it."

While immigrants living in the United States illegally are prohibited from buying coverage in the state and federal exchanges and are also not eligible for Medicaid, their American-born children are eligible for federal subsidies or Medicaid depending on income. California state senator Ricardo Lara is expected to introduce legislation that would allow immigrants living here illegally to sign up for the exchange and receive state subsidies.