Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Analyzing the Divergence, Pt.8 – What about the worst-off who are always denied?

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At the state level, if all the young and healthy buy cheap health insurance out of state, then the only ones left are those in poor health. The state is left with this very costly burden. Only with large subsidies from the federal government can they hope to be of any effect. The more than 30 states who offer high-risk health insurance pools are already in deep trouble. Their effectiveness is, admittedly, like a bad joke. They are too under-funded to be considered viable. Take the State of Florida, for example. Because of under-funding, their state pool program has dwindled over the past 17-years of closed enrollment to only 313 enrollees. So, with their 3.8 million people having no health insurance, this represents a service percentage of, as low as 0.0082% of those being served, compared to those who might be served. They are-pretty-much shut down. For a more in-depth understanding of the ‘un-insurable’ and ‘high-risk pools’, please refer to the article series’ entitled “Those Worst Off", and “Cambridge Study: Millions of ‘Uninsurable’,”

Mr. McCain has addressed this issue with his Guaranteed Access Plan (GAP), as mentioned earlier in this series. What wasn’t mentioned is his proposal to fund these expensive patients who can’t afford the very high health insurance premiums of the high-risk plans. He is suggesting setting aside $7 billion to $10 billion for this purpose. Nearly all the experts agree that the actual cost [to not leave anyone out] would be about 10 times that amount to provide affordable health insurance to all. But, before anyone could question Mr. McCain’s figures, he trumped them with his ‘vague card’: “These are very preliminary figures.” They are still the only figures we have. But the real question isn’t if he can do it, it’s “How committed is he to do it?”

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