Seeking Medical help in Massachusetts
The Massachusetts law on healthcare expands the Medicaid enrollment to the workers earning up to 300% of the federal poverty level. It also offers state commercialized health insurance cover to other uninsured citizens and allows adults to be on a print’s plan till the age of 25. The law also requires the employers with more than 10 workers to offer subsidized health insurance. The law is more beneficial especially in terms of its coverage, delivery and finance reform of the healthcare sector. For instance, it has made sure that about 410,000 residents that were uninsured were insured and now only 2% of the residents remain uninsured. the main challenge is that the law has not constrained the cost of the healthcare in Massachusetts thus remaining among the most expensive healthcare in the country. More so, there are serious medical access challenge which persist in the state despite the existence of the universal medical cover. Another challenge is the dearth of primary care physicians as the cover does not cater the cost of maintain a medical professional. Moreover, funding at the medical facilities is being dramatically cut and is unlikely to improve anytime. This happened after the great American recession that occurred in 2008.
The policy could be improved by the insurance market reforms for small businesses and by examining the effects of the law that merges a person and a small group market. It could also be improved by proposing legislation that includes provisions which address the issues of telemedicine, exchange of information and investments in safety net providers. This will stabilize distressed communities in hospital and other healthcare facilities. Insurers also ought to maintain accurate provide directories that cover the medical insurance with no additional costs. For this reason, urgent care clinics would be needed to offer behavioral health services. Innovation experiments could also be used in various medical facilities to determine whether optional methods.
The law takes into account the population approach to health and wellness. It is said that the new law has positive impacts on both children, families and person living in Massachusetts.
Initially, families and individuals seeking Medical help in Massachusetts often faced difficulties finding providers as their insurers do not regularly update their provider directories. The provider’s directory contained inaccurate information about the services delivered. As a result, a number of listed providers moved their offices and no longer participated towards insuring their clients. This mostly happened to the families seeking behavioral health care. However, after the introduction of the new law, things changed that creating wellness and health among individuals in the city. For instance, chapter 124 of the law made improvements towards the provider’s directories by ensuring that the providers are easily accessible and available to its citizens. The law has ensured that the taskforce chaired by the division of insurance makes recommendations and created regulations to make improvement on the providers directories. For instance, Medicare coverage is offered o former foster youth till the age of 25 years. For this reason, the former youth between the age of 18 and 25 year finds it easier to maintain their health coverage insurance. Children with medical complications are also among the people who are positively impacts by the policy.CMC is defined as a population of children with at least one chronic illness which needs high care provisions. It is reported that with the new law a comprehensive, quality and affordable coverage is given to the children and families across the nation.
References