Health Insurance Coverage Bad News and Good News

Hello, and welcome to this issue of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. Today we'll look at four articles, one that paints a not-so-rosy picture on health coverage for the elderly, and a few that look at the positives of universal health care and how preventative health care can save you money in the long run.

Our first article, "Insurance gap leads some elderly to forgo medicine," from the Associated Press, author Kevin Freking looks at how many elderly citizens are forgoing health care and medicine due to a "donut hole" in Medicare health insurance coverage. This means that, after a certain amount of money is spent on medication through insurance, customers then have to fork over the entire amount of the medication until they spend a certain amount, $3,850, upon which insurance would kick in again.

This method was adopted in 2003 to save the government money on the program, but now studies are showing that patients with diabetes, high blood pressure and other high-risk ailments skip out on getting their medicine entirely once they fall into this donut hole. While reports show the government has indeed saved money with this method, several are saying it needs to be reworked so that medication coverage is constant. While there are plans that do this, most customers don't seem to be aware of them, so more education is also stated as needed so customers understand their coverage as well as the plans they should select. Hopefully this will be taken care of so at-risk patients don't forgo the medication they need to keep their quality of life as high as possible.

Next, in the "good news" department, an article by the Boston Business Journal entitled, "Nearly half a million have obtained insurance since new health law took effect," author Mark Hollmer looks at a recent study which shows that nearly half a million people have obtained their own health insurance coverage since the Massachusetts mandated health insurance law took effect in 2006. According to the study, not only did 439,000 people obtain new health insurance coverage, but 191,000 people expanded their existing coverage as well.

The report also states that the new law has reduced the amount of people seeking free and expensive insurance by going straight to emergency rooms, up to forty-four percent from the year before, which is pretty significant. It looks like, even though the program has had growing pangs, it's doing very well indeed. It might even be a good model for a national health care system, if we ever decide to adopt one.

In keeping with the theme of universal health care, an article entitled, "Universal health makes 'cents'" takes a look at how America is the only first-world nation without universal health coverage, how it works so well in other countries such as Japan and Taiwan and why the blame and fear rests on the shoulders of Republicans. I usually try not to include political-leaning articles here, but this one is interesting enough to let this slide, in my opinion.

According to the article, other countries such as Germany, have one government run insurer that everyone pays into, except the poor and veterans, who are fully subsidized. Similar systems are also set up in Japan and Taiwan. Customers can also see any specialist they like without restriction. In each of these countries, the GDP for health care is less than ten percent, which makes me wonder why can't do something similar here in the US. The article, in closing, I think hits the nail on the head by saying, "These countries see health as a human right, unfortunately we don't."

The final article we'll look at comes to us from the Chicago Tribune, and is entitled, "Good health, more wealth." In this article, author Carolyn Bigda looks at how preventive medicine such as exercise and diet can not help us save money individually on future health care, but as a whole help the country save millions on possibly unneeded health care expenses as well. It's a fairly interesting article, yet it has no real conclusions or advice, basically it's just something to think about.

That concludes this edition of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. I hope you've enjoyed it, and until next time, may you be both happy and healthy.