Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Mr. McCain on Health Insurance/Care, Pt.6 – Nobody can afford a bad deal.

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When looking at these numbers, we can plainly see that those in the most need for health insurance and being presently served are only a drop in the bucket. Due to fiscal restraints, many other restrictions are placed on these state health insurance programs in order for a person to get enrolled. One prime example of the horrible track record of these is the populous State of Florida. Here, they have a looming figure of 3.8 million residents who have no health insurance.

Florida has such a state pool program as this, but has kept it closed to any new enrollment for the last 17 years! That’s almost a generation! With 3.8 million people having no health insurance, their state-sponsored health insurance high-risk pool program has dwindled over the past 17-years of closed enrollment to only 313 enrollees. This represents a service percentage of, as low as, .0082% of those being served, compared to those who might be served. Heavy restriction!

The American Cancer Society recently conducted an informal survey. From nearly 2,700 citizens that called their health insurance hot line, they learned that only 2% had become enrolled in high-risk health insurance pools within a two-month period of being referred to them. The associate director of policy for the group’s Cancer Action Network, Stephen Finan commented, "In most cases, we know they probably didn’t apply because they discovered high premiums or pre-existing condition clauses and just didn’t bother.” For a more thorough background on this failure, please refer to the article series entitled “Those Worst Off”.

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