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Health News
- Only 1/4 Of Estimated Number Eligible For Subsidized, Private Health Insurance Through Kynect Have Signed Up For It
While 85,000 people are covered by private health plans through Kynect, that's only one-fourth of the 340,000 that state officials estimated would be able to buy subsidized coverage through the state insurance exchange. That "underscores some of the...
- Obamacare Seems To Be No Plus For Kentucky Democrats, Perhaps Mainly Because Of The Word's First Three Syllables
Though the federal health-reform law has helped cover more than half a million Kentuckians and cut the state's uninsured population by half, "there is little evidence it will help" Kentucky Democrats in the Nov. 4 elections, reports Abby Goodnough...
- Primary Care, A Big Focus Of Health Reform, Faces Challenges As Kentucky Doctors Deal With Change
Craig Dooley, newly covered by Medicaid under health reform, got an X-ray in Dr. Sven Jonsson's Baptist Health office. (Photo by Luke Sharrett for The New York Times)Primary-care doctors are key to the nation's health by providing preventive...
- Latest New York Times Look At Obamacare In Kentucky Examines Highs And Lows Of Enrollees And People Helping Them
Navigator Kelli Cauley helps an applicant. (Luke Sharrett, NYT)While many states have suffered through complications in signing up uninsured people for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, Kentucky has been leading the way in efficiency,...
- New York Times Starts Series That Will Study Affordable Care Act's Implementation And Impact In Louisville Area
It's the calm before the health-care storm, and amid the uncertainty of how the health-care reform law will be implemented, health-care conditions in Louisville, Ky., seem to make it a good environment for a New York Times series that will study the...
Health News
Obamacare raised woman's premium 74% but she's thankful it has extended health care to those who didn't have it
"Beneath the loud debate" about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it is "quietly starting to change the health care landscape," writes Abby Goodnough of The New York Times, in the latest installment of her series looking at the law through the lives and businesses of Kentuckians.
"In Kentucky alone, more than 350,000 people ? about 8 percent of the state?s population ? have signed up for coverage," Goonnough notes. "Insurers and medical providers are reporting steady demand from the newly covered for health care, ranging from basic checkups to complex surgical procedures." About 80 percent of the signups in Kentucky are for Medicaid, and that number is likely to increase, because while open enrollment in private plans for 2014 closes tonight at midnight, Medicaid accepts enrollees year-round.
Goodnough's story looks at a new Medicaid enrollee, a man who is having difficulty affording his subsidized policy, and a woman whose income is so high that she couldn't even get subsidies for a new policy through the state health-insurance exchange ? but who, like the other two, came to one of the Family Health Centers in Louisville because her doctor wasn't in the network for her new policy. The centers "primary and preventive care in low-income neighborhoods where private doctors are scant," and just over half their patients last year had no coverage, Goodnough reports.
Donna Morse, 61, is a widow who "lost her insurance last year because it did not meet the new law?s standards. Now she has a new plan with much higher premiums, and which few doctors and hospitals will accept," Goodnough writes. "She is paying $448 a month for a new Humana plan, up from the $258 monthly premium she paid before," an increase of 74 percent. And when she took her prescription to her neighborhood Walgreens, she "discovered that the chain did not accept her new Humana policy, a so-called narrow network plan with a limited number of providers."
"In Kentucky alone, more than 350,000 people ? about 8 percent of the state?s population ? have signed up for coverage," Goonnough notes. "Insurers and medical providers are reporting steady demand from the newly covered for health care, ranging from basic checkups to complex surgical procedures." About 80 percent of the signups in Kentucky are for Medicaid, and that number is likely to increase, because while open enrollment in private plans for 2014 closes tonight at midnight, Medicaid accepts enrollees year-round.
Goodnough's story looks at a new Medicaid enrollee, a man who is having difficulty affording his subsidized policy, and a woman whose income is so high that she couldn't even get subsidies for a new policy through the state health-insurance exchange ? but who, like the other two, came to one of the Family Health Centers in Louisville because her doctor wasn't in the network for her new policy. The centers "primary and preventive care in low-income neighborhoods where private doctors are scant," and just over half their patients last year had no coverage, Goodnough reports.
Nevertheless, Morse, a dental hygenist, told Goodnough that she was ?very pleasantly surprised? by her experience at the clinic and ?I?m really thankful that a lot of people are getting health care that couldn?t have it in the past.?
That describes David Elson, 60, "a self-employed businessman with a multitude of health problems and medical bills," and forgot to pay the first month's premium for his subsidized policy; and Tamekia Toure, 40, a diabetic and single mother who moved to Louisville from Alabama and got on Medicaid but found a job at Amazon soon after her clinic appointment. "She was elated to find work so quickly . . . but also a little scared," Goodnough writes. "Would her new income make her ineligible for Medicaid, so soon after she had signed up? With the expanded program, this so-called churning in and out of Medicaid, based on changes in income, is expected to be common, and for many, problematic." (Read more)
- Only 1/4 Of Estimated Number Eligible For Subsidized, Private Health Insurance Through Kynect Have Signed Up For It
While 85,000 people are covered by private health plans through Kynect, that's only one-fourth of the 340,000 that state officials estimated would be able to buy subsidized coverage through the state insurance exchange. That "underscores some of the...
- Obamacare Seems To Be No Plus For Kentucky Democrats, Perhaps Mainly Because Of The Word's First Three Syllables
Though the federal health-reform law has helped cover more than half a million Kentuckians and cut the state's uninsured population by half, "there is little evidence it will help" Kentucky Democrats in the Nov. 4 elections, reports Abby Goodnough...
- Primary Care, A Big Focus Of Health Reform, Faces Challenges As Kentucky Doctors Deal With Change
Craig Dooley, newly covered by Medicaid under health reform, got an X-ray in Dr. Sven Jonsson's Baptist Health office. (Photo by Luke Sharrett for The New York Times)Primary-care doctors are key to the nation's health by providing preventive...
- Latest New York Times Look At Obamacare In Kentucky Examines Highs And Lows Of Enrollees And People Helping Them
Navigator Kelli Cauley helps an applicant. (Luke Sharrett, NYT)While many states have suffered through complications in signing up uninsured people for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, Kentucky has been leading the way in efficiency,...
- New York Times Starts Series That Will Study Affordable Care Act's Implementation And Impact In Louisville Area
It's the calm before the health-care storm, and amid the uncertainty of how the health-care reform law will be implemented, health-care conditions in Louisville, Ky., seem to make it a good environment for a New York Times series that will study the...