Health insurance and its costly gaps
23 01 08 - 11:13
January 23, 2008
THE FRUSTRATION and financial hardship caused by the insufficient private health insurance coverage of Alison Bass's family is no surprise ("An underinsured kick in the groin," Op-ed, Jan. 21). As a social worker in the Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Care program, I have witnessed these same problems with increasing frequency over the past 10 years.
more stories like thisMany private health insurance plans are only adequate for routine care. Families who face serious illness typically are overwhelmed not just by copayments and deductibles, but by necessary care that simply is not covered by their plan. I often meet families whose private insurance lacks adequate prescription coverage. Eighty percent prescription coverage may be OK when all are healthy, but few families can afford 20 percent of the cost of their child's chemotherapy drugs.
I advise every Massachusetts family I meet - and most have some form of private health insurance - to apply for supplementary health coverage for their child through the MassHealth program. This covers most of the expenses that patients' private coverage fails to cover.
Bass's op-ed correctly concludes that our private health insurance system cannot be fixed at the state level, and that the solution lies in federal universal healthcare. While some may groan at this conclusion, the fact is we're already moving in that direction.
JOE CHABOT
Waltham