Community Health: Accessing Services
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009Check out today’s chat with Libby Post, communications director for the Community Health Care Association of New York State, about community resources for cash-strapped young adults.
Health Insurance: Expert Advice
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009Check out the live radio interview we did with Karyn Schwartz of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Karyn is a senior health policy analyst based in Washington, D.C. We spoke with her about the obstacles young people face accessing health care, and took some questions from our listeners.
You can also click on the itunes button beneath the audio player to download the podcast directly for your ipod.
Free and low-cost clinics in NYC
Sunday, May 10th, 2009We put together this google map based on research & word-of-mouth. If you have any insight or tips on any of these clinics or know about one that we missed, leave us a comment!
View Free & low-cost clinics in NYC in a larger map
Knock on Wood: Living without health insurance
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
Anthony Serravite, a 25-year-old from Long Island, NY, is a self-described health fanatic. He runs everyday, has his bachelor’s degree in physical fitness education, and he’s certified to teach health to elementary and high school students. In spite of this, he’s gambling with his own health—as someone without insurance.
Adults between the ages of 19 and 29 are the fastest growing demographic of Americans without health insurance, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund.; 13.7 million lacked insurance in 2006. These uninsured Americans face a particular dilemma. Once out of school, many are dropped from their parent’s insurance plans. Entry-level jobs are often part-time or just don’t offer health care benefits.
They’re known in the industry as “the young invincibles.” They’re young, relatively healthy, and rarely need to visit the doctor, so they decide to skip on health care coverage, since it’s expensive. Serravite subscribes to the same health care plan as so many of his uninsured peers: cross your fingers and hope you don’t get sick. He sat down with Jeanmarie Evelly to talk about life without health care.
Public vs. Private Health Insurance
Thursday, April 30th, 2009As you look into public and private health insurance options, it is necessary to first understand the difference between the two and how that difference affects your decision.
This Friday, May 1st at 2:30 p.m., Talking Health and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism will be airing webcast at http://www.healthjournalism.org/talkinghealth
Speakers will feature four experts. The first two will offer their judgments on what we can expect:
-Cathy Schoen, senior vice president for research and evaluation at The Commonwealth Fund
-Bruce M. Bullen, chief operating officer of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
Our two journalist experts will provide their insights and suggestions for covering what will be a major story in the coming months:
-Noam Levey, a reporter at the Los Angeles Times
-Reed Abelson, a writer at the New York Times
If you would like to submit questions, please send them to: talkinghealth@healthjournalism.org. The speakers will answer questions submitted before and during the webcast.
All three of InsureMeNYC’s bloggers will be assisting in the production of the webcast and we’d love for everyone to come listen. We’ll be following up with a post with some main points from the discussion, so check back!
Free Clinics
Thursday, April 30th, 2009As layoffs increase, so does the number of the uninsured. And as the number of uninsured goes up, so does the number of the patients visiting free clinics.
NPR ran a piece last week on free clinics in Virginia - click here to listen.
InsureMeNYC.com is working hard to assemble a map of free clinics in NYC. Check back soon!
“Free” care offered at national drugstores
Thursday, April 30th, 2009Last month, one of the nation’s top three drugstore chains, Walgreens, announced that their in-store clinics would provide free clinic evaluations and treatments for recently laid-off customers who lack any form of insurance. However, the offer only stands for existing customers and their families who are unemployed after March 31 and completely uninsured - including without any form of insurance such as COBRA.
- Only job losses after March 31, 2009, qualify.
- Someone in your immediate family must have been treated at Take Care before your job loss.
- You must be collecting unemployment.
- You must not have COBRA or any other insurance.
- Only the Terminated Person, your legal spouse (or official, same-sex domestic partner) and minor children for whom you are legal guardians qualify.
- Any prescriptions the practitioner writes will be charged at regular price.
Free care at Walgreen’s Take Home clinics will address respiratory problems, allergies, infections and skin conditions. Check-ups, vaccinations and injections will not be given. The cost for these treatments for uninsured patients would cost upwards of $59 for uninsured individuals.
The impact of this new initiative is unclear, but according to Walgreens, their pharmacies serve 5.3 million people every day, and in 2008, filled 617 million prescriptions at their 6,679 stores.There are 341 Take Care clinics in stores in 35 cities, including New York.
However, the program apparently won’t last long. In a statement issued by Walgreens chairman of the Take Care Health Systems division, the program is an experiment in both service and cost saving and is expected to continue only through the end of 2009, and are only offered weekdays between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. - hours during which most people are either at work or looking for a job.
For some readers, the announcement should be treated with thoughtful skepticism, as this Illinois blogger notes.
Options for Public Health Insurance in NY
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009If you’re wondering whether or not you’re eligible for a public health insurance plan in NYC, the first thing to do is consider your income (before taxes).
*income levels for single adults
(click “more” below to read about the other important details concerning each plan)
Uninsured? Don’t be too shy to bargain
Thursday, March 26th, 2009Insurance companies bargain with our doctors all the time — so why can’t we?
Lesley Alderman’s New York Times article, Bargaining Down Medical Bills outlines what you need to know about negotiating medical expenses. Some of the best tips:
- If you know you need a particular surgery, call a hospital’s billing department ahead of time. Explain your situation and ask for the lowest rate they would give an insurance company. Shop around! Call several hospitals and see where you can get the best price.
- Offer to pay cash. The time and hassle of going through insurance companies, credit cards, and bill collectors cost your doctor big time. Offering cash up front might seal the deal.
- If you’re facing some unexpected illness or injury and weren’t able to negotiate ahead of time, talk directly to your doctor and the billing manager. Explain your financial woes. You might lock in a lower price or set up a monthly payment plan.
Changing COBRA
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Barack Obama at a health care roundtable last year. Are his changes enough? PHOTO: Rick Bowmer for the Associated Press.
If you hadn’t heard of COBRA before this year, you probably have now. The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, passed in 1986, is the law that allows people who’ve lost their employer’s insurance coverage to stay on that plan for up to 18 months.
Now, help from President Obama’s stimulus law could make COBRA a more practical option for someone who’s recently lost coverage.
There’s been a lot of talk about COBRA since the recession began and the unemployment rate’s skyrocketed. Those who’ve lost jobs or seen their hours cut now find themselves without insurance as well. In a case like that, COBRA seems the most sensible, and sometimes the only, option. For a year and a half, you can continue getting the same coverage that you had with your employer.
But there’s always been some catches when it comes to COBRA, and the biggest problem was always costs. When you’re employed, your company generally pays for the bulk of insurance costs. Under COBRA, while you can stay on the same plan, you’re now entirely responsible for the monthly premium costs of that plan—plus a 2 percent administrative fee. Which can be pretty costly, especially to someone who’s newly unemployed and has no income.
Congress addressed this problem recently in one of the provisions of the stimulus package. Recognizing the growing number of unemployed Americans who could benefit from COBRA but couldn’t afford it, Congress announced in February that the government would subsidize, or pay for, 65 percent of COBRA premiums for those who qualify for up to nine months.
This is good news for some New Yorkers. And by, “some,” I mean: those who are terminated from their jobs between Sept. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2009. So if you’ve recently lost coverage, you’re in luck—the government will foot a pretty decent chunk of your COBRA bill, at least for the first nine months.
But if you lost your job before this September—and millions of Americans did, since the recession officially began in December of 2007—the subsidies don’t apply to you. Anita from our last post, for example, would be left out, since she lost her health benefits last spring. So while COBRA changes are definitely a step in the fright direction, it’s certainly not a fix.
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