85 percent of the patients at the Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland will become eligible for Medicaid in 2014. The clinic was recently named a Federally Qualified Health Center, which allows it to accept Medicaid. That means it can hire several new staffers including a doctor and a dentist.

But getting the word out about the health care law and its impact on low-income people is difficult. Free Clinic spokeswoman Melissa Ghoston says many of the Clinic’s patients are too busy to take time to learn about the law.

“A lot of our patients tend to have very complicated and chaotic lives to begin with,” she said. “They’re dealing with trying to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, figuring out child care, figuring out transportation, looking to get back into the workforce, and just dealing with a lot of the circumstances and symptoms of living in poverty.”

Ghoston says the talk about the health care bill is often complicated even for people who consider themselves politically literate. The clinic plans to distribute information to its patients, but she says it needs help.

 “I think if community centers, churches, areas where a lot of our patients tend to informally congregate, could do a better job of getting that information out, that would definitely be helpful versus expecting our patients to turn on CNN and be able to follow the conversations night after night.”

The Free Clinic will have to implement a sliding fee scale as a Federally Qualified Health Center, but it plans to pay for all patient costs not covered by insurance with private donations.