The situation was all too familiar: A young woman and her father met with one of our Community Outreach Workers and asked how to sign up for health insurance. A quick check in My Account Page (MAP) found that her MassHealth Essential had ended mid-month because she had started a new part-time job. MAP also showed she was already Commonwealth Care eligible. The Outreach Worker explained how to enroll in Commonwealth Care and all of the benefits it would provide starting next month.
"Well, the problem is that she’s a heroin addict," the father said. "Her rehab clinic checks her insurance every day and won’t help her out until she gets her insurance back."
The economic downturn shaped a lot of our discussion – how it affects clients, state services, and our own organizations. For example, more clients find themselves in tears during appointments – some with problems like home foreclosure that outreach workers just can’t help fix. Many HAN organizations are taking on additional responsibilities with fewer staff. CP has also cut back staffing; we are now closed on Wednesdays.
At both HAN meetings, Brian Rosman from Health Care For All (HCFA) led a discussion about the next steps in Health Care Reform. Before he spoke, outreach workers exchanged stories about how some of new policies in Health Care Reform are working out in practice.
Please call your legislators today and tell them how important outreach and enrollment work is to the success of health care reform. Line item 4000-0352 - which funds outreach and enrollment, and Community Partners - is in jeopardy.
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.
Debate begins May 21; support is needed.
This winter, about 100,000 households in the Commonwealth were protected from losing their heat, electricity and other utilities by the state utility shut-off protection laws, which prevents shut-off for households whose circumstances meet certain conditions. This protection ended on May 1, and people have begun getting shut-off notices. These notices are bad news, but CAN be used to request a MassHealth premium waiver or Commonwealth Care premium waiver.
New language will stabilize outreach and enrollment funding, broaden scope
Our last Boston HAN meeting came in the wake of the Connector Board’s decisions to shift more of the costs of Health Care Reform to consumers by raising co-pays and premiums for Commonwealth Care. Advocates continue to oppose these cost increases and push for sharing the costs more evenly with businesses. Meanwhile, outreach and enrollment workers are seeing an increase in administrative barriers to enrollment in Commonwealth Care and MassHealth.
