PNHP

Massachusetts model fails to provide financial security for the sick

SICK IN MASSACHUSETTS: Views on Health Care Costs and Quality

Harvard School of Public Health/WBUR/Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
June 2012

This poll examines the views of sick adults in Massachusetts regarding the cost and quality of health care in the state as well as their perceptions about their own health care in the past year. “Sick” adults in Massachusetts (27% of adults) are defined as those who said they had a serious illness, medical condition, injury, or disability requiring a lot of medical care or had been hospitalized overnight in the previous 12 months. Focusing on the experiences and opinions of those who have had significant recent medical care yields special insight into the current problems and opportunities facing Massachusetts’ health care system.

Today most sick adults in Massachusetts see the cost of health care as a serious problem for the state, and they view the problem as having gotten worse over the past five years. Sick adults are more troubled by costs than they are by quality.

Although Massachusetts has nearly universal health insurance coverage, the costs of health care are a serious financial problem for many sick adults and their families. Some sick adults report having been refused medical care for financial or insurance reasons. Additionally, some sick adults say they did not get needed medial care because they could not afford it. Taken together, these finding suggest that insurance coverage does not protect some Massachusetts residents against the financial hardships of illness, likely reflecting recent trends in higher deductibles and co-payments.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/96682782/Sick-in-Massachusetts

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

This survey is particularly important because it provides the real life health care financing experiences of patients who have serious medical problems – precisely those for whom the system should be designed to serve.

In Massachusetts, “Forty percent of sick adults in the state said the out-of-pocket costs of medical care are a ‘very serious’ (16%) or ‘somewhat serious’ (24%) problem for them.” Obviously the financing system is not serving well those individuals with major medical needs.

Another significant finding: “About a quarter of sick adults (24%) who have been insured at any time during the past year say they have had a problem with their insurance paying a hospital, doctor, or other health care provider in the past 12 months.” Thus the insurers are not doing their job either.

Since the Affordable Care Act uses a financing design similar to that of Massachusetts, we can anticipate the same miserable performance for the nation, or more likely even worse because of other design flaws in ACA.

At a minimum, we should expect the health care financing system to work well for those with serious problems. The ACA design won’t cut it. We really do need a single payer national health program that would work well for all of us.

Massachusetts model fails to provide financial security for the sick

SICK IN MASSACHUSETTS: Views on Health Care Costs and Quality

Harvard School of Public Health/WBUR/Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
June 2012
This poll examines the views of sick adults in Massachusetts regarding the cost and quality of health care in the state as well as their perceptions about their own health care in the past year. “Sick” adults in Massachusetts (27% of adults) are defined as those who said they had a serious illness, medical condition, injury, or disability requiring a lot of medical care or had been hospitalized overnight in the previous 12 months. Focusing on the experiences and opinions of those who have had significant recent medical care yields special insight into the current problems and opportunities facing Massachusetts’ health care system.
Today most sick adults in Massachusetts see the cost of health care as a serious problem for the state, and they view the problem as having gotten worse over the past five years. Sick adults are more troubled by costs than they are by quality.
Although Massachusetts has nearly universal health insurance coverage, the costs of health care are a serious financial problem for many sick adults and their families. Some sick adults report having been refused medical care for financial or insurance reasons. Additionally, some sick adults say they did not get needed medial care because they could not afford it. Taken together, these finding suggest that insurance coverage does not protect some Massachusetts residents against the financial hardships of illness, likely reflecting recent trends in higher deductibles and co-payments.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/96682782/Sick-in-Massachusetts

This survey is particularly important because it provides the real life health care financing experiences of patients who have serious medical problems – precisely those for whom the system should be designed to serve.
In Massachusetts, “Forty percent of sick adults in the state said the out-of-pocket costs of medical care are a ‘very serious’ (16%) or ‘somewhat serious’ (24%) problem for them.” Obviously the financing system is not serving well those individuals with major medical needs.
Another significant finding: “About a quarter of sick adults (24%) who have been insured at any time during the past year say they have had a problem with their insurance paying a hospital, doctor, or other health care provider in the past 12 months.” Thus the insurers are not doing their job either.
Since the Affordable Care Act uses a financing design similar to that of Massachusetts, we can anticipate the same miserable performance for the nation, or more likely even worse because of other design flaws in ACA.
At a minimum, we should expect the health care financing system to work well for those with serious problems. The ACA design won’t cut it. We really do need a single payer national health program that would work well for all of us.