Friday, November 15, 2013
Solving Two Federal Problems at Once: Lets Mail Information to Those Losing Their Inadequate Health Insurance
The efforts by both Congress and the President to ensure that people can keep individual health care policies which do not meet the Obamacare minimum coverage standards are so misguided that if it weren't for the fact that vulnerable people are being caused needless suffering it would be comical.
so far, there is no evidence that anyone is going to be worse off with the coverage now available to them on the exchange than they were with the policies being cancelled. In fact, information available to us from sources like the Kaiser Family Foundation, Business Insider, and Families USA about the characteristics of the policies being cancelled is that whatever peace of mind they provided to those paying for them was illusory.
The fact that this insurance did not meet Obamacare criteria means that it is highly likely that the coverage they had:
- Excluded the conditon for which they were most likely to need care
- Had a far higher deductible than the policies now available on the exchange
- And if it covered mental illness at all, did not do so at the same level as other covered illness.
Moreover, these policies were subject to cancellation as soon as they were needed (for example after a diagnosis of cancer or after a debilitating accident).
Yet these facts are of no help to people without access to information about their alternatives.
Here's one thought--instead of requiring insurance companies to continue making these inadequate plans available, why couldn't they be required to send individualized information about alternatives on the exchange at the same time they send the cancellation letters?
The fact that they already have the relevant information about their policy owners means that those individuals don't need the web site to find out about their options.
In retrospect, depending on any web site to provide all the information to everyone who needed it was a bad idea from the beginning. But letting people continue to pay good money for bad coverage is not the right solution.
Here's a win/win idea--why don't we activate an already existing but underused government resource to get individualized information out quickly to those who need it---the U.S. Postal System.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2013/11/solving-two-federal-problems-at-once-lets-mail-information-to-those-losing-their-inadequate-health-i.html