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The plan was to ensure that every child gets health insurance coverage. However, consumer health insurance expert Carrie McLean of eHealthInsurance.com worries that this is not really happening.
According to McLean: “As an unintended consequence of health reform, a lot of insurers stopped offering individual coverage for children. That put parents in a bind, and children in danger. How would you feel if you were told that you children could no longer be declined for health insurance, but then you found that no plans were actually available?”
An estimated 6 million children in the US don’t have health insurance, and there is no child-only health insurance available in the market in over 20 states, McLean revealed. “Even when child-only plans are available, their availability may be limited to a single insurer or to specific once-a-year enrollment periods.”
Joel Ohman, founder of InsuranceProviders.com, also shared how many parents get trapped on expensive health care insurance plans for their kids. “Two years later, the unintended consequence of this new regulation is that many parents now wait to purchase a policy for their child until after they are already sick and have expensive medical bills looming. This drives the cost of child-only health insurance up so high that premiums in many states are unaffordable.”
McLean added: “No one wants to see children go without health insurance and access to medical care, but despite health reform’s best intentions, children are falling through the cracks right not. Not all of them need to. Parents should take some time to understand the options in their state and do what they can to avoid letting their children go uninsured.”
In an effort to help strengthen the health care workforce, the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) has awarded $9.1 million in funding to medical students at schools in 30 States and the District of Columbia who will serve as primary care doctors.
The new health care law paved the way for the NHSC Students to Service Loan Repayment Program. The program will provide financial support to fourth year medical students who are interested to pursue a career in primary care. They will be asked to serve in communities with limited access to care.
Eric Schluederberg, a medical student at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California, one of the Students to Service awardees, shared: “I always knew my calling was primary care. I’m not a social researcher, and I’m not an economist. But it seems that there are a lot of underserved people in this nation, and that providing sound primary care is a good economic investment. For example, ensuring that pregnant women know to take folic acid supplements is one way to prevent the cost of the numerous surgeries required to help someone with Spina Bifida become an independent member of society.”
Monica Mitcham, a student at the University of Texas – Medical Branch at Galveston, also one of the awardees, shared: “Having grown up in a resource-limited, poverty-stricken east Texas town and experienced first-hand the toll that access barriers can take on entire families, a seed of determination to bridge the socioeconomic health care divide was planted within me from an early age. Several years later, as a young lady facing the challenges of becoming a first generation college student, I reflected once again on the importance of primary care in underserved communities. These humble beginnings taught me an important lesson and cultivated within me a strong desire to dedicate myself to community building and strengthening through reaching out to all age groups as a family physician.”
A total of $638 million in loans from the Obama administration will be distributed to health care cooperatives in 8 different states. This is part of the administration’s program under the federal health insurance law.
Customers will be running the new nonprofit health co-ops, which are to offer coverage to individuals and small businesses. The co-ops are expected to maintain pressure on private insurance firms, resulting to better control on plan coverages and prices.
The new awards are for co-ops in Montana, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Wisconsin. John Morrison, who is helping set up the Montana cooperative, said: “It will be consumer-governed and will be responsive to consumer needs.”
Government will be giving out more federal awards to co-ops in other states in the future.
The formation of the co-ops are hoped to help individuals and small business owners keep health care costs at a minimum. Tom Murphy employs eight people at Door Systems of Montana and shared: “Every year for the last four, five or six years, it seems like we have had to decrease benefits to our employees due to rising costs in the health care system.”
The Oregon Senate voted to advance Gov. John Kitzhaber’s proposal to redesign the state’s health care system. The plan aims to overhaul the health care system to improve coordination of care and reduce hospital stays, which would translate to healthier patients and lower costs.
Considered ambitious by some, the plan would create coordinated care organizations and change the way people get their health care. The new regional organizations would take charge of integrating care from doctors, dentists and mental health experts for Oregon Health Plan patients. According to a state-funded report, the measure would save the state at least $3.1 billion over 5 years.
Directly, the changes would affect 600,000 patients on state-funded health care, but it is expected that others will also see the impact as the health system expands.
The Senate gave its approval through a 17-13 vote. The bill next goes to the House, where it is expected to get more support.
Gov. Kitzhaber said: “The vote today brings us one step closer to creating a more sustainable health care system through improved health and reduced waste and inefficiency.”
Despite receiving criticisms from Catholic leaders around the country, the White House is not backing down on its plan to require all employers, including Catholic-affiliated hospitals, to cover contraception in their insurance plans. The changes are expected to take effect in 2013.
While churches and other places of worship are exempt from the requirement, many church-affiliated universities and hospitals are not. The White House maintains that the move is not to limit religious freedom, but to promote healthy living.
Bishop Paul Swain of the Sioux Falls Diocese says the church cannot endorse President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan. Bishop Swain said: “We as a church would either have to violate our teachings to subsidize and provide or we’d have to stop providing health care for our employees, neither one is acceptable to us.”
The church believes it infringes on the freedom of religion and calls government leaders to allow people the freedom on conscience. They insist that faith-based employers must not be forced to do something against their beliefs.
