Blue Cross Foundation: Costs still a problem
While Massachusetts has maintained high levels of health care coverage since state health care reform was passed in 2006, making it affordable for all Bay State residents requires “collective action” by insurers, providers, government officials and consumers.
This is according to Audrey Shelto, president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation.
Shelto’s comments came with Wednesday’s release of the 2012 Massachusetts Health Reform Survey (MHRS) commissioned by the Blue Cross foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The report, which has been conducted since 2006, highlights the difficulty low- to middle-income Massachusetts residents have in affording health insurance. It is based on a telephone survey of about 3,000 adults ages 19 to 64.
While coverage remains strong, with 94.6 percent of non-elderly adults insured at the time of the survey towo years ago (up from 85.9 percent in 2006), nearly half of low- to middle-income adults, earning between 138 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level, reported problems with health care costs. And nearly a quarter of insured adults with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty reported going without needed care because of cost.
Furthermore, 37.1 percent of all adults reported experiencing problems with health care spending during the year the survey was issued, and 16.4 percent said they went without needed care because of cost.
Those who reported financial problems due to health care costs employed a range of strategies, including cutting back on non-health care related spending (89 percent), cutting back on saving or dipping into savings (77 percent) cutting back on health care services (57.2 percent) and borrowing or using credit cards (42.7 percent).
“The message from our survey is clear: We need to finish the work of health reform by making high-quality care affordable as well as accessible. There’s reason to be optimistic now that Massachusetts has a comprehensive cost containment law on the books, and I hope these findings will lead to a renewed sense of urgency, and action, by all sectors of the health care community,” said Phil Johnston, chairman of the Board of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation.
On the positive side, the survey revealed improvements in two access measures where the Bay State had lagged behind national average. In 2012, 13 percent of Massachusetts adults reported being told by a doctor’s office that new patients weren’t being accepted, down from 16.4 percent in 2008. That national average is 11.2 percent.
And adults reporting problems getting primary care fell to 10.9 percent in 2012, down from 14.1 percent in 2008, which brings Massachusetts below the national average of 11.6 percent.
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