Health Care Reform

Enrollments usually slow down during the summertime, but this year, outreach workers are seeing increasing numbers of people needing help. At our July HAN meetings, we also had the opportunity to have some dialogue with Rebecca Balder and Carolyn Minkin of the Health Safety Net about upcoming changes.

"Outreach & enrollment" means much more than putting up posters and helping people fill out MassHealth applications. Recently, over the course of a two hour appointment, my supervisor and I counseled one household on eleven different public health insurance, subsidy and care programs. We helped them file four separate applications to five different insurance programs, putting together a patchwork of care options to cover the hole left by the loss of employer-sponsored insurance.

With Chapter 58 and health care reform, Massachusetts’ leaders proclaimed that the state was committed to most of its residents getting health coverage. It is a hard thing to achieve, even harder to sustain. In government, there is often a big push for the "flavor of the day," but then attention turns and initiatives fade away. This is one of the risks we face with health coverage in Massachusetts.

The Qualifying Student Health Insurance Program (QSHIP) was set up to assist all individuals studying at colleges and universities in Massachusetts. However, with the creation of Health Care Reform, we are beginning to see more issues with these plans than before. For some students, the QSHIP programs create barriers that make it harder to access the care they need.

Our June 6 Western HAN meeting was an opportunity to step back and reflect on the next steps toward universal coverage in Massachusetts.

This month, outreach workers gave some powerful examples of how the Commonwealth Care Open Enrollment process has added some new twists to the problem of access to providers.