Thanks to the creation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, the number of uninsured Maryland residents has dropped substantially, bringing the state into the Top 10 list for having the largest percentage rate decrease of uninsured residents. As a recent Gallup survey has shown, Maryland’s uninsured rate has dropped by 5.1% between 2013 and 2014, whereas the national average uninsured rate only dropped by about 3.5% in that same time period.
But as the Baltimore Sun aptly notes, the work for state authorities and health officials has just begun; getting people to em>sign up for a health insurance plan was the first step, and now officials have to make sure that those insurance plans actually translate into real health care coverage.
According to the Sun, Sen. Catherine Pugh and Del. Ariana Kelly have recently introduced a new bill (Senate Bill 834/ House Bill 990) into the state’s legislature to ensure that Marylanders covered by the Health Exchange plan actually receive the care they need — even if those people are living with high-cost chronic conditions.
Currently, the Health Exchange plan utilizes a tiered percentage plan that puts the burden of “cost-sharing” insurance payments on those who are living with chronic illnesses, thus “putting the cost of treatment beyond the reach for many Marylanders.”
The Sun notes here that a recent survey from the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease found that state insurance plans, like Maryland’s current plan, require those living with chronic illnesses to pay 66% more, on average, for medicine, compared to what they would have to pay under an independent employer’s insurance plan.
Some Americans with chronic illnesses have adapted to absurdly high medical bills by receiving the treatments and medications while knowing that they’re unable to pay the full cost — making unpaid medical bills accountable for approximately 62% of all personal bankruptcy filings, according to the American Journal of Medicine. But plenty of other people have simply chosen to abstain from medical treatment altogether when the cost is too high — and this trend, in particular, is likely to continue under Maryland’s insurance plan, unless the reforms proposed by Sen. Pugh and Del. Kelly can be seriously taken into consideration by the state’s General Assembly.
Considering that the number of Maryland residents now covered under the state’s plan has risen from about 63,000 last year to nearly 123,000 this year, state officials are under even more pressure to make sure that their insurance plan is actually effective for those who need it most.