Posted on 07/16/2014 2:18:05 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
Nine months after Americans began signing up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, a challenging new phase is emerging as confused enrollees clamor for help in understanding their coverage.
Nonprofits across the country are being swamped by consumers with questions. Many are low income, have never had insurance and have little knowledge of the health-care system. The rampant confusion poses a potential hurdle for the success of the health law: If many Americans don’t understand health insurance, that could hurt their ability to use their benefits — or to keep their coverage altogether.
Community organizations are scrambling to keep up with the larger-than-anticipated demand but are stretched thin. A federal program to help consumers has also run out of money.
“We are hearing this in probably every state that we work in,” said Christine Barber, a senior policy analyst with Community Catalyst, a Boston-based advocacy organization that works with community groups in more than 40 states. “‘Okay, I have my card, what do I do now?’ ”
Health insurance, with its jargon and complicated fee structure, has long been confusing for many consumers, but experts say the literacy gap poses an especially big problem now. Before the opening of the marketplaces, people buying coverage on their own tended to be individuals with higher incomes and more familiarity with how insurance works.
“So what you’ve got is an insurance industry that did not do a good job in gearing up for a population that has never had health insurance before, an Obama administration that did a horrible job on the back-end, resulting in a flood of calls to insurer call centers, and a population that is low-income and is not health-insurance literate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Julio Herrera, 63, a construction worker, bought what he thought would be the most affordable plan when he enrolled through Maryland’s new insurance exchange this spring.
But he doesn’t understand why he is getting charged for hospital bills when he already pays the insurance company every month. And he did not grasp this thing — a deductible — that was $4,000.
“If there is one concept that people don’t understand, it’s the deductible,”
Oh, they understand it all right. Obama’s paying for it out of his stash.
Low information voters not understanding a low information law passed by low information members of Congress and written by low information bureaucrats.
What could possibly go wrong?
“Dee Ductible....” There’s a stripper name, for ya..
he’s 63 and doesn’t understand deductible???? What, he’s never insured anything in his life?
You can’t fix stupid. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it.
These morons are finally figuring out it’s not free! bahahahaha!!
I wouldn't expect the average man-in-the-street to automatically understand concepts like deductible, copay, co-insurance, MOOP, or capitation, among others.
Some of the newer variations like cost-sharing subsidies in certain silver plans take a moment to sink in even among the better read of the rest of us.
They'll also be vulnerable when the insurance companies start denying claims. For all of these reasons, clinic-style medicine would be much better for a lot of the formerly uninsured.
But you can make the horse drink the Kool-Aid - and make him think it was his idea.
Stupid not only can’t be fixed, it is the one crime for which the Universe always extracts punishment....
“But he said he doesn’t understand why he has to pay premiums when he is on vacation”
Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up..
I can offer some advice.
1. Look up the definition of “deductible”.
2. Buy a pair of glasses in order to facilitate the reading of the fine print.
3. Erase the phone numbers of all your doctors. You won’t be needing those anymore.
4. Buy a new car. You may be driving to the other end of the state for your doctors appointments.
5. Buy a real high quality calendar. Sometimes it’s hard to remember doctor appointments that are far in the future.
6. Get a second job. The rates will be going up every year. Forever.
I would expect the average man on the street to understand deductible and co pay. Maybe not all the other, but yes, if you call yourself a man, there are some basics one should have.
If you’re a boy on the other hand…..
The good news is that you now have a brand new Obamacare policy and it only cost 2X what an insurance policy would have cost you before Obamacare.
The bad news is that no doctors or hospitals will accept your Obamacare policy.
Would you like a free Obama phone?
Many are paying $100 a month for policies with $12,000 deductibles: no they don’t understand, but they think the administration is “on their side”.
It can be tempting to laugh at the ignorance of the “little people”, but in the words of the late Ann Willis Richards, D-TX, talking about the first and second Bushes, they “cain’t he’p it.”
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