Healthcare law's turn at bat
JUST ABOUT everyone in Massachusetts is supposed to have health insurance coverage starting today under the state's new healthcare law. But this is a relaxed deadline, with penalties not kicking in until after the first of 2008. Today really marks the intensification of a process of education, for both consumers and health plans, on buying insurance and keeping it affordable.
The first event will take place at Fenway Park this afternoon, when Jon Kingsdale, executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, will be on hand for the opening of an information booth. Throughout the baseball season, the Red Sox will help the Connector persuade uninsured people to buy health insurance before they suffer a serious accident or other health catastrophe.
The Legislature established the Connector to implement the law passed last year to expand health insurance coverage to almost everyone in the state. As of June 1, it had enrolled 79,000 people in its subsidized plans, but now the hard part begins. It has to sign up those earning more than 300 percent of the poverty line, or $30,630 for a single person, who must pay full price.
The unsubsidized premiums range from $175 to $600 a month depending on coverage, location, and age. A poll conducted by opinion analyst Robert Blendon of the Harvard School of Public Health found that while most residents support the law, many believe that some premiums are too high. The Connector has the power to exempt people from the mandate if the premiums are unaffordable, but too many exemptions would defeat the law's chief purpose: near-universal coverage.
Most people polled by Blendon, however, thought the subsidized insurance premiums, offered by four health plans, were affordable. Kingsdale is doing his best to keep them that way. Last week he told the four plans that they should hold rate increases to 4 percent for the six months beginning Jan. 1, 2008. That might sound adequate, but in the Massachusetts healthcare system, double-digit increases have been the norm for the past seven years. The Connector has to break that pattern to make the law a success.
During the summer, people in Massachusetts will be hearing a lot about the new insurance plans -- at Fenway Park, from television and radio ads, promotions at
Yet 55 percent of the people who lacked insurance sometime over the past year did not think the law would benefit them. These are the very people it was written to help. Kingsdale foresees another year of implementation, plenty of time to persuade the doubters. If the Connector can stabilize premiums, the advantages of health insurance will be easier to grasp.
