Under Obamacare, nearly 17 million Americans gained health coverage, a new study from the Rand Corporation finds.
But meanwhile, several new reports are fattening up my “Health insurance reform is a start but it’s no panacea” folder.
Here in Massachusetts, where coverage is near universal, costs stand in the way of needed health care for more than a quarter of residents, according to new findings from the state’s Center for Health Information and Analysis. The State House News Service reports:
The report identified costs as a “significant barrier” to care in Massachusetts, where more than one in four respondents reported an unmet health care need due to costs over the past 12 months. One in five said they had difficulty paying family medical bills, with those conditions more common among adults in low-income families, the uninsured and “those with poor health with an activity limitation.”
A third of Massachusetts respondents reported that members of their family were trying to stay healthier as an approach to lowering family health care costs and one in four reported that someone in the family had switched to a lower cost health insurance plan.
And here’s an odd one in the journal JAMA Surgery. From the press release:
A study of survival rates in trauma patients following health insurance reform in Massachusetts found a passing increase in adjusted mortality rates, an unexpected finding suggesting that simply providing insurance incentives and subsidies may not improve survival for trauma patients, according to a report published online by JAMA Surgery. Continue reading