Healthcare Digest 5/7: Could Healthcare Debt Reform Happen Now?

The effect medical debt can have on consumers if well-summed-up in this paragraph from a Credit.com blog post by Mark Rukavina:

“There are few times when a person is more vulnerable than when they are sick and worried about their prognosis — and then the confusing medical bill statements begin arriving. Many months may go by before a consumer realizes a bill is overdue. And medical bills that fall through the cracks, whether large or small, can be sent to collection. Add to the fact that billing errors are also a common problem for consumers, and you have a recipe for disaster. Last year, the American Medical Association’s Health Insurer Report Card found that the error rates for private health insurers on paid medical claims was 10%.”

Rukavina feels pretty confident that The Time is Now for healthcare debt reform because “Congressional Republicans and Democrats, the CFPB, and the IRS all seem concerned about medical debt” — though if we’ve learned anything from the recent handgun background check fiasco (remember: Montana Senator Max Baucus, who helped President Obama craft the Affordable Care Act, screwed the pooch as it were in representing his constituents, succumbing to pressures from lobbyists rather than voting in line with those who elected him to represent them), that’s no guarantee.

Tuesday’s Headlines

Wait, HOW Many?: New Health Insurance Survey: 84 Million People Were Uninsured for a Time or Underinsured in in 2012; Nearly Decade-Long Trend of Rising Uninsured Rates Among Young Adults Reversed. [The Commonwealth Fund]

How Many People Do YOU Know Signing Up for the Affordable Care Act?: “Healthcare reform should be the signature Democratic achievement of President Barack Obama’s presidency.
But with “Obamacare” five months from show time, Democrats are worried about whether enough Americans will sign up to make the sweeping healthcare overhaul a success — and what failure might mean for Congress heading into the 2016 presidential race.
Some of the law’s main advocates fear that not enough of America’s 49 million uninsured will know about health coverage offered in their own states. Even if they do, new insurance plans may not be attractive to young, healthy consumers needed to offset an expected influx of older and sicker patients.” [Reuters via Red Bluff Daily News]

Only Five Ways?: “Within the next 12 months, consumers could get a quick check-up at the pharmacy, text glucose levels to a doctor through a smart-phone app or earn bonuses for treadmill time from their employer–all as the nation grapples with growing health care costs.” So the Detroit Free Press shares five ways your health care will change in the next year. [Detroit Free Press]

Peter Pitts Picks Parts to Parse: “As Congress looks to slash federal spending, it ought to closely examine two health care initiatives run by alphabet-soup government bodies — one from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the other from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).” [Alabama.com]

Oh Karl Rove: Isn’t it Time for You to Hibernate for Another Thousand Years Before Feasting on the Earth’s Young?: “At his impromptu news conference last Tuesday, President Obama demonstrated he is either so detached he doesn’t know what’s happened as the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) is being implemented or that he knows but intends to brazen his way through an emerging policy debacle. Whichever it is, it’s likely to be a political disaster for the president and his party.” And if anyone knows from political disasters, it’s the toxic man behind everything awful that happened to us in the early 2000s. [Fox]

Credit Card Debt Leads to Skipped Healthcare: “People with outstanding credit card or medical debt were more likely to delay or avoid medical or dental care, finds a new study in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Other debts, such as having student loans, housing loans or car loans were not associated with forgoing care.” [Chiro.com]