To Help Navigate Obamacare, United Way, Catholic Church, Others Get $67 Million – Forbes

Government, Healthcare 4 comments

2013

The Obama administration awarded $67 million in grants to more than 100 organizations who have volunteered to help Americans learn about the health care coverage available in the marketplace.

Obama calling lawmakers about healthcare bill

While this is a lot of money, when you divide it among the affected population, it’s a small amount per person, less per person than I used to spend each year during annual open enrollment albeit in a largely fruitless effort to educate employees about choosing their health plan. Let’s hope this effort is more productive. However, putting this effort in the hands of citizen volunteers means questionable success based on my experience.

Check here for a list of the money disbursed in your state.

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via To Help Navigate Obamacare, United Way, Catholic Church, Others Get $67 Million – Forbes.

4 comments

  1. I find the headline curious. Indeed, Ascension Health Services, the largest Catholic & non-profit health system received two grants totaling $368,389. And Catholic Health Services of Alabama received $20,750. No other group or organization identified as Catholic received grants.

    Meanwhile three different Planned Parenthood affiliates received grants totaling $655,192. You may be aware that Planned Parenthood is the largest purveyor of abortion services in the country. Health care organizations affiliated with the Catholic Church do not provide abortion services.

    I add, AIDS of Alabama received $501,380.

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  2. Medicare and Medicaid already lose almost four times as much money to fraud as the nation’s ten largest health insurers (combined) make in profit.

    As you know, communication is a two-way street. The audience needs to be identified and ready/receptive to the message. What messages have we sent so far? Like all other government “rights” or “entitlements”, we’ve told people that many will benefit from the new programs. However, it is only of obvious benefit to a small minority of Americans. Even a few days ago, there were articles about those with pre-existing conditions – and concern as to whether they would enroll in the exchanges.

    Expect to see:
    – Transition rules, because people didn’t respond in time, stretching out the period beyond 3/31/14 to enroll,
    – Adjustments in coverage during the year because people didn’t understand the coverage, or because it was more expensive than I thought it was, and
    – Forgiveness where advanceable credits exceed actual credits – because I didn’t know.

    Fact is, think how much easier it was to do Medicare Part D and Rx coverage for 44 million seniors – all of them knew what Rx they were using, frequency, dosage, cost, etc., and, of course, they weren’t able to finish enrollment until June of 2006 – six months late.

    And expect to see a moderate increase in fraud – perhaps designed as misunderstandings due to the failure of the rollout process.

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