It is time to make the MassHealth/Commonwealth Care outreach and enrollment grants permanent. With the passage of health reform, these grants have been essential to help facilitate enrollments in the new public health insurance plans.
With the implementation of health reform and the health insurance mandate, it is essential that individuals in each community have local access to needed information and to be able to enroll in all public health programs in their own communities.
An historical perspective here may be helpful: Prior to October 1995, Massachusetts residents enrolled in public health insurance programs through local Department of Public Welfare offices, where individuals had designated workers. At the time there were only six categories of MassHealth, but still, individuals found that having relationships with workers helped facilitate successful enrollments.
In an effort to streamline the application process, MassHealth was removed from local offices and put into four enrollment centers (MEC’s) throughout the state. MassHealth became essentially a mail and telephone process.
But since the MassHealth expansion of 1996 and now the passage of health reform in 2006, much has changed. There are now an astonishing 152 categories of public health coverage. The mail and telephone procedure to apply for the increasing complex health coverage programs is now considered inadequate. Reasons include:
• With 152 categories of public health coverage, the public health coverage system in Massachusetts increasingly complex.
• The numbers of individuals now eligible for the variations of MassHealth and Commonwealth Care is greatly increased.
• More than before, individuals frequently need assistance, preferably with a worker with whom they have a relationship, to understand the complicated and frequently confusing eligibility guidelines and successfully complete the application process.
• Many applications need follow-up troubleshooting to insure that individuals are successfully enrolled in programs.
• Individuals also need assistance with the ongoing re-determination process. So not only is it important to enroll residents into these programs, but they also need assistance to maintain their health insurance.
The need for health care outreach and enrollment is not a one or two year endeavor, individuals gain and lose health insurance all the time. Reaching out in the communities and enrolling the diverse residents of Massachusetts in all available health insurance programs will take a sustained effort.
Chip Joffe Halpern
Executive Director, Ecu-Care in North Adams
Sustained effort? That’s putting it gently.
It’s more like a life sentence with no hope of parole.
Thankfully there is a network of community based organizations and committed folk all across the state who think of it as a Way of Life and are happy to serve.
” With 152 categories of public health coverage, the public health coverage system in Massachusetts increasingly complex.”
All the more reason that we need to have a simple single payer health system. Anything less is a waste of resources and a harm to people’s health.
As quoted from Michael Fine, M.D., “We need a health care system, not a wealth extraction system.”
from http://tcenews.calendow.org//pr/tce/blog-post.aspx?id=596
By the way, can Mr. Joffe Halpern please define to the public just what these 152 categories are?
They are mostly variations in the eligibility and income guidelines in the expanded MassHealth programs, Commonwealth Care of course, CMSP, MassHealth Buy-in and others. Again, with the expanded opportunities for coverage comes the challenge of education and administration. And as Judy stated, the network of community based organizations have been effective in providing this to their communities. The need now is to make permanent the outreach grants that sustain these networks.
Thank you, Mr. Joffe-Halpern, but how is your explanation preferable to a simple, equitable single payer system?
Mr. J-H,
This oppressive nightmare has already hurt far too many residents and calling it a success means that those are have been hurt and continue to be hurt are nothing but collateral
damage to you.
This punitive and wasteful health INSURANCE LAW must be replaced with health CARE REFORM that provides equitable, affordable, guaranteed, quality medical and RX
services to all. Chapter 58 doesn’t even come close to cutting the mustard.
It is failing and will bite the dust in the near future but not soon enough to avoid bruising far too many hard-working residents.
The citizen’s revolt has started and many across the nation are learning how harmful this law is with more publicity to come about the truth of what is happening in MA – not
the spin you and your crowd put on it.
Going forward, many events will be taking place nationwide and citizens will be rallying to tell the presidential candidates that what they want is NOT what we want. And you
can be sure we don’t want this MA fraud disguised as health care reform to be forced on anyone else in this country.
See you around the campfire. Better start looking for another career. Soon we won’t be funding your nonprofit.
In the end, coercion results in chaos.
The most basic state mandated insurance has citizens and voters of MA. being FORCED to give $2,320 + – yearly to pad insurers bottom line profits. This comes out of taxpayers annual $6,960 taken by the state for this non-reform of healthcare plan. Thats right-if you and your wife have found your way to earn more than $42,000 or so the state will now be taking an additional 7 grand or so yearly on top of its near highest tax burden in the entire country. In return you get coverage that’s full of holes.
The state could have lead the nation with a true reform of our broken healthcare system by implementing single payer, which works very well around the world, but this would eliminate the gross corporate profits of insurers. So, with the help of a conservative republican think tank called the Heritage Foundation, who were invited in to Right Wing Romney’s office to draw up this plan of redistributed wealth (our wealth taken and given to insurers) we now have mandated non-reform in MA and right wingers and a number of thoughtless democrats here have VERY happy lobbyists. WE are all the poorer for it having been led astray by Romney and others who quoted monthly premiums as low as $150 knowing, I believe, full well that this figure was scoffed at within the insurance industry and would never be reached. But it cut through resistance and so was often floated along with other misleading claims to sell us this non-reform.
This is all black and white-we are being extorted by our state for the benefit of corporate America while citizens worldwide enjoy the tax efficient and exemplary care of single payer healthcare. Get involved to bring fair and equitable coverage via single payer here: http://masscare.org/
Mr. J-H,
Came back to see if you had the courtesy to respond to the thoughtful comments regarding your post. Not a word. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?
btw, Sustaining outreach and enrollment in the communites is a waste of precious MA taxpayers’ money. You can outreach ’til the cows come home but you can’t get blood from a turnip.
Don’t you get it? People can’t even afford gas, heat, food and property taxes nevermind C. Care or C. Choice – already a problem based on the 2007 prices. With the premium increases on July 1 along with doubling the copays for the lowest incomes in the state while gas, heat and food continue to skyrocket making affordability even more of a problem, you will lose more people. There are also many who can’t afford to upgrade their coverage to meet the state’s requirements.
So what are you going to do? Send the Connector bus across the state to round up the uninsured, cart them off and lock them up?
Few people are fooled by this freak show in MA. A system that helps some by exploiting others is unjust and unsustainable, and the truth is getting out.
Fasten your seat belt, mister. The citizens’ revolt has begun. This bloodsucking non-reform is on a crash course. Finished. Finito.