Health Insurance and the Pandemic: Tips for Insurance Seekers and Public Policymakers
The Coronavirus pandemic is shining a light on a fundamental problem with our country’s health care system – its reliance on employer-sponsored insurance as the primary source of health care coverage. Because of that linkage, the massive increase in unemployment since mid-March has caused millions of Americans to lose their health insurance – at the very time when access to testing and treatment is more important than ever.
The pandemic has highlighted a related problem, the extreme racial disparities in health care access and outcomes, and it is rapidly increasing those disparities.
Over the past week, Kids Forward has prepared two documents related to the challenges posed by the sudden loss of insurance coverage resulting from the huge surge in unemployment. The first is a fact sheet that provides tips for the newly uninsured regarding their options for getting health insurance, and it includes an infographic illustrating the patchwork quilt of coverage options in Wisconsin.
Although our infographic does not show any gaps in coverage, that’s a bit misleading. Some people who are eligible for insurance through the federal Marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act are unable to afford the premiums and other cost-sharing, and many immigrants are ineligible for any insurance subsidies. Other people fall through the cracks when their income or employment changes because administrative requirements can create impediments to moving into BadgerCare or a Marketplace insurance plan.
The second new Kids Forward publication focuses on the need for policy change. It is a blog post that details the importance of making fundamental, long-term changes that turn Wisconsin’s patchwork quilt of insurance options into a stable, gap-free blanket of coverage. It also summarizes the policy changes that need to be made in the shorter term to minimize gaps in coverage and thereby improve access to Coronavirus testing and treatment, and to begin reducing the extreme racial disparities in health care access and outcomes.
You can find those two publications here:
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