Almost 97 percent of adults there have health insurance since the state mandated coverage two years ago, but some say they still can't afford health care, according to a survey conducted by the Boston Globe and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation.
In some instances, that was because they couldn't afford to use their health insurance because the deductible or copay was too high, putting them in the same position as people without health insurance.
The survey of 506 adults found:
13 percent of insured residents said they couldn't pay for some health services in the past year;That same percentage of insured residents also said they couldn't afford to fill a prescription in the past year because it cost too much or their copay was too high;When insured and uninsured residents were considered together the number of people who couldn't pay for some health services or fill a prescription rose to 14 percent of respondents;30 percent of those surveyed ranked the cost of care their biggest health concern;39 percent of those surveyed said health care costs was among their top two concerns and no other worry came close to that.Under standards approved by the Massachusetts Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority board, all health insurance policies in the state must meet certain minimum standards. Individuals who don't have health insurance or whose policies don't meet those standards face an annual tax penalty that is $912 this year, but will rise, according to Medical News Today reports.
But as a prominent physician points out, the Massachusetts plan has problems.
Dr. Howard Brody is director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, cited facts from a recent newsletter he had received that had an open letter from 250 Massachusetts doctors stating problems with the plan.
The Massachusetts physicians pointed out that the cost of the private health insurance is high, with the cheapest plan for a couple in their 50s costing $8,200 annually with a $2,000 per person deductible, Brody said in an article published in the Grand Rapids Press.
That high cost and high deductible might explain why some of the people surveyed couldn't pay for some health services in the past year and couldn't afford to have prescriptions filled, despite paying for health care insurance to cover their medical needs.
But while individuals are struggling to pay for health insurance and still have money left over to pay for care, the insurance companies are not suffering a cash-flow problem.
The Massachusetts doctors wrote that the overhead charged by the state's major insurers is five times higher than in the U.S. Medicare system. And, the state's largest insurer, Blue Cross, is reportedly gaining a $1 million surplus daily and paid its outgoing CEO a $16.4 million retirement bonus, Brady added.
