Under RomneyCare, 14 Percent of Sick Adults Still Report Being Unable to Access Health Care
Health coverage isn't health care: The Boston Globe reports that in Massachusetts, where RomneyCare's mandate to carry insurance has led to the highest coverage levels in the nation, 14 percent of sick adults still report being unable to access health care over the last year. The reasons were mostly financial: 70 percent cited financial reasons, including high out of pocket expenses and insurer coverage issues. The Harvard School of Public Health poll of 500 people who had been sick or hospitalized during the previous 12 months made clear that despite the 2006 health care overhaul, which increased health coverage levels to about 98 percent of the population:
Seventy-eight percent of participants said health costs were at least a somewhat serious problem for the state, and 63 percent said the problem has gotten worse over the past five years. Forty percent said they have struggled to pay out-of-pocket costs themselves.
Reports like this are challenge for Romney, who as the state's governor worked to pass the Massachusetts health care plan and signed it into law, as well as for President Obama, whose administration has on multiple occasions noted that it modeled the federal health care law on the Bay State's plan.