Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Those Worst Off, Pt.1 – What’s it like?

The New York Times has just posted a very good article, written by Kevin Sack and posted it on their www.nytimes.com site. It covers some of the most urgent segments of our society – those who need health insurance/care the most, but can’t get it. He considers what is being currently proposed for health insurance/care and the ramifications that might be placed on these people. A typical scenario describes a self-employed man from the Baltimore suburb of Pikesville, MD who, at age 52, hadn’t found it necessary to buy health insurance. Then, he suffered a mild heart attack and discovered it was too late.

The initial hospital bill was $17,000 and his on-going prescriptions would be $400 per month. He found himself too young for Medicare by 13 years and has been rejected by every health insurance company he could find. So he finally inquired into the state programs that Maryland offers to high-risk people, of which there about 35 such programs. These programs are set up to cover the people in this segment, who are consistently declined by the commercial health insurance carriers.

He applied to the high-risk plan called the Maryland Health Insurance Plan and was offered a plan for $4,572 which was set up with high deductibles. The cost of the plan was already 13% of his annual earnings, came with high deductibles and wouldn’t cover any of the $17,000 medical debt he was already swamped with. He wanted the coverage, but was faced with the tough choice of not paying for either; his mortgage, child support, car insurance or his heart medicine. Tough choices.

Continued…