Community Centers Warn That Poor Won’t Keep Paying Obamacare Premiums

[Chieftain]

While the Obamacare debate has so far focused on who’s paid their first premium, a better question may be who can afford to keep paying for health insurance month after month.

Christine Wagner, the executive director of a Catholic health care community center in New York called the St. Joseph  Neighborhood Center, warns that many low-income people that have signed up won’t be able to keep up paying for their health insurance.

“We’ve waited the 90 days, 120 days, and we’re seeing the reproductions of people who bought new policies, but haven’t been able to maintain them,” Wagner told WXXI News. “So, we’re seeing the unfolding of some of the consequences of some of these new policies that people actually weren’t able to maintain.”

WXXI notes that Wagner supports Obamacare but is looking for improvements to the current law.

Wagner told WXXI that around 200 clients of St. Joseph enrolled in the exchange, but some can’t afford to keep paying the premiums. Others, Wagner said, opted not to sign up because even with federal subsidies, health plans were too expensive.

The complaint is not exclusive to Wagner’s clinic: an April tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation determined that the top reason that people are remaining uninsured is the cost. Thirty-nine percent of uninsured respondents told Kaiser that they couldn’t afford health insurance.

The current set-up of the health care law means that St. Joseph’s and doctors across the country will have to take on the cost of caring for those who stop paying their premiums themselves.

Obamacare grants all enrollees a 90-day grace period after a premium payment is missed before their insurer is allowed to cancel the coverage. For the first 30 days, the insurance company is required to cover any care the customer receives; but for the final 6o days before the policy is canceled, doctors will be required to eat the cost of any health care services they provide.

At a Wednesday congressional hearing, several top insurers participating in the federal Obamacare exchanges told the House Energy and Commerce committee that doctors may call the insurance company to determine whether a person is currently insured.

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Read more at http://barbwire.com/2014/05/09/community-centers-warn-that-poor-wont-keep-paying-obamacare-premiums/#5XAx7mlZxOVGegFT.99

[alicewonders]

Obamacare is such a cataclysmic cluster cluck, even worse than I ever imagined it would be.  God help us! 

 

[truth_seeker]

Obamacare is such a cataclysmic cluster cluck, even worse than I ever imagined it would be.  God help us! 

 

FWIW I know three women that signed up here in California, got insurance, and have obtained medical care with their physicians. (Two private insurance policies, one Medical)

That statement does NOT means I support the program. It merely means I gathered empirical evidence and at least here, it is not completely awful. It may get worse for subscribers later, when they get dinged for additional premiums, if their income estimates were low, thereby meaning less subsidy, etc.

Of course the total costs to government may be staggering. I suspect Obama will be gone by then. California seems to be capable of getting computer systems built, etc. unlike some states and the FedGov.

[Oceander]

FWIW I know three women that signed up here in California, got insurance, and have obtained medical care with their physicians. (Two private insurance policies, one Medical)

That statement does NOT means I support the program. It merely means I gathered empirical evidence and at least here, it is not completely awful. It may get worse for subscribers later, when they get dinged for additional premiums, if their income estimates were low, thereby meaning less subsidy, etc.

Of course the total costs to government may be staggering. I suspect Obama will be gone by then. California seems to be capable of getting computer systems built, etc. unlike some states and the FedGov.

FWIW, my wife and I technically got a "cheaper" monthly premium (in NY) but it has a monstrous deductible, so much so that I have had to stop seeing a doctor whom I am supposed to regularly see to monitor some medication because I can't afford the entire out-of-pocket, and since I can't get the medication unless I see him (the prescription is not refillable), I've had to start playing games with that medication to stretch a one-month prescription over two months.  At least I can get a one-month prescription for that medication covered when I get it filled; my wife has three prescriptions that she must pay for in full unless she gets a three-month prescription (90 days) that she fills by mail - the insurer won't cover at all if the prescriptions are filled at a pharmacy or if they're for less than 90 days.

Woo-hoo; thank God for Obamacare, 'cause now we get to pay for what we can no longer afford to use.

As with any scheme of thievery, I mean redistribution, it's always easy to cherry-pick a few winners; the problem is, the losers outnumber the winners by orders of magnitude.

Obamacare is a fuster cluck of the first order.

[jmyrlefuller]

FWIW, my wife and I technically got a "cheaper" monthly premium (in NY) but it has a monstrous deductible, so much so that I have had to stop seeing a doctor whom I am supposed to regularly see to monitor some medication because I can't afford the entire out-of-pocket, and since I can't get the medication unless I see him (the prescription is not refillable), I've had to start playing games with that medication to stretch a one-month prescription over two months.  At least I can get a one-month prescription for that medication covered when I get it filled; my wife has three prescriptions that she must pay for in full unless she gets a three-month prescription (90 days) that she fills by mail - the insurer won't cover at all if the prescriptions are filled at a pharmacy or if they're for less than 90 days.

Woo-hoo; thank God for Obamacare, 'cause now we get to pay for what we can no longer afford to use.

As with any scheme of thievery, I mean redistribution, it's always easy to cherry-pick a few winners; the problem is, the losers outnumber the winners by orders of magnitude.

Obamacare is a fuster cluck of the first order.

New York is going to be the poster child for the Obamacare success story. The problem is, 1) they already had their own exchange beforehand (it wasn't yet mandatory) and 2) the onerous demands of New York health insurance were even worse before Obamacare, so when that was implemented it actually ALLEVIATED some of the demands.