Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

The Real Problem of Covering the ‘Uninsured’, Pt.11 – Good reports, but continued hurdles.

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The ‘commonwealth community’ as a whole is becoming more healthy because of this health insurance/care plan, with the added preventive benefit (also anticipated). Health care costs over-all, are falling, as more and more residents take advantage of the new-found health insurance. This comes back to the ‘ounce of prevention…’ wisdom that may be more effective with health issues than anything else. It is universally acknowledged that the cost of preventive care is miniscule, compared to the cost of ‘too late’ care. This new health insurance/care system provides all that.

The tangible immediate benefit was that quality health insurance premiums are available to everyone in the state; priced at slightly over half of the price they were before the program. Quality health insurance premium costs were cut almost in half!

It would be remiss, however, to not acknowledge the greatest challenge that remains. That is sustainability. At the inception of the project, when Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, Senator Ted Kennedy, the Massachusetts Legislator and the many other devoted pioneers of this program solicited funding assistance from the Bush administration three years ago. They have always been concerned over future funding. Again, because of a quicker response from the hurting public than anticipated, the under-allocated funds ran short. The problem continued, as the second half of the over 600,000 uninsured continued to flow in. As the remaining few finally become enrolled, accurate results can be measured and future predictions will become much easier. Still, these funds must be newly approved every new fiscal year.

Continued…