One of the things that may happen as health care reform continues is that many insurance companies could start offering health insurance that comes with a high deductible. Many people are concerned that this will cause those who have lower incomes to not get the health care they need, because of an inability to afford the deductible. However, a study seems to show that this is nothing more than a misconception.
High deductible health insurance, as the name implies, comes with a high deductible that you must pay for, out of pocket, before the insurance will begin to provide coverage. Those that have enough money to do so can get a a Health Savings Account to help with that kind of expense. However, those who have low incomes won’t be able to do that. This is why people are concerned that if insurance companies start offering high deductible health insurance, instead of other options, that the people with the lowest income will avoid getting needed health care, specifically because they cannot afford it.
People who have this kind of health insurance are not required to stay within a network in order for their insurance to cover costs (after the deductible is paid for). They also are going to pay lower premiums than they would if they had a different form of health insurance. They don’t have to pay co-payments. This, potentially, could save people some money on health insurance.
A study was done by the RAND Corporation, which is a nonprofit policy research organization. Their study looked at more than 360,000 families who had high deductible health insurance that was offered to them through their employer. The data came from the years 2003 to 2007. The people in the study came from low income areas, and each had a family member who had one of the five most costly chronic diseases. Those diseases are: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, or kidney disease. These families were considered “medically vulnerable”.
The study found that spending on health care fell among families in the high deductible health care plans, when compared to the families who were using other types of health insurance. However, when they compared the amount of spending on health care from “medically vulnerable” families that had high deductible health insurance, and families that were not “medically vulnerable” who also had high deductible health insurance, things changed. Both of those groups were spending about the same amount on health care. This means that having high deductible health insurance isn’t preventing people from affording the health care they need, even if they are “medically vulnerable”.
However, these are some important things to keep in mind about this study. All of the families that included a “medically vulnerable” family member also had a family member that worked full time. That family member was getting health insurance benefits through their employer, which tends to make the cost of health insurance more affordable, in general.
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