Health Affairs Blog
November 18, 2010
Consumers and Insurance: Experiences In Eleven Countries
By Chris Fleming
As the United States begins implementing health reform, how does the U.S. experience compare with that of other high-income countries? To answer that question, The Commonwealth Fund conducted its thirteenth annual health policy survey, this year focusing on access, cost, and care experiences. The survey findings were published today in a Health Affairs Web First article by Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen and coauthors.
Overall, the survey identified significant differences between countries and found that US adults — even when insured — were the most likely to incur high medical expenses, spend more time on paperwork, and have more claims denied.
The countries surveyed were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Key findings include the following:
* Twenty percent of US adults surveyed said they had had serious problems paying medical bills in the previous year. Responses to the same question from the other ten countries were in the single digits. US respondents were also significantly more likely than adults in other countries to have gone without care because of cost.
* Thirty-five percent of US adults had out-of-pocket medical spending of $1,000 during the previous year, a far higher percentage than in any other country.
* A lower proportion of adults in the United States (70 percent) than in all other countries except Sweden (67 percent) and Norway (70 percent) were confident that they would receive the most effective treatment when needed.
* When asked about access to prompt medical care, 57 percent of US adults said they had seen a doctor or nurse the same or next day the last time they were sick and needed care. Switzerland had the most rapid access (93 percent). Adults in three other countries (Canada, Norway, and Sweden) reported longer waits than US adults.
* Nearly one third of US adults (31 percent) reported either denial of payments by insurers or time-consuming interactions with insurers, a higher rate than in all other countries. Twenty-five percent of US respondents reported that their insurance company denied payment or did not pay as much as expected; 17 percent said they spent a lot of time on paperwork or disputes for medical bills or insurance — the highest rates in the survey.
* The United States had the widest and most pervasive differences in access and affordability by income of the eleven countries. The United Kingdom had the least.
And...
Health Affairs
November 18, 2010
How Health Insurance Design Affects Access To Care And Costs, By Income, In Eleven Countries
By Cathy Schoen, Robin Osborn, David Squires, Michelle M. Doty, Roz Pierson and Sandra Applebaum
US Insurance Reforms: Challenges Ahead
Concerns expressed by US respondents were concentrated in the working-age population that is the target of insurance reforms. In this age group, wide disparities by income for those insured throughout the year underscore the importance of the Affordable Care Act's emphasis on benefits with income-related provisions. The law will expand eligibility for Medicaid to those earning 133 percent of the federal poverty level. It will also provide subsidies for premiums for people up to 400 percent of poverty and for cost sharing for people up to 250 percent of poverty.
However, by international standards, the United States will remain an outlier for cost sharing. The annual limits for the least expensive benefit option will range from $2,000 per person ($4,000 per family) for those with incomes just above 133 percent of poverty, to $6,000 per person above subsidy thresholds. Families can opt for lower cost exposure, but only if they can pay higher premiums.
As US reforms unfold, it will be important to monitor access and affordability. The Affordable Care Act will provide billions of dollars in subsidies for premiums and cost sharing to address affordability for individuals and families with low or modest incomes. Even so, it is still possible that some of the insured will remain at substantial financial risk for care they cannot afford when sick and bills they cannot pay.
Even after the enactment of health reform, the United States will also remain unique among countries in that it covers low-income people in a separate program. This poses the dual challenge of promoting equity across programs and ensuring continuity of insurance. In the other ten countries in our survey, providers were typically paid the same amount regardless of patients' incomes, which is not currently the case in the United States. Nor is it likely to be the case after full implementation of health reform. Avoiding coverage gaps as patients' circumstances change will require creative efforts to enable single portals of entry for people to enroll in publicly sponsored and private insurance, and smooth transitions as families gain or lose eligibility for insurance. To the extent that provider networks also differ for those low-income insurance programs, continuity of care as well as insurance will remain at risk after reforms take effect.
Comment: Compared to other high-income nations, the health care financing system in the United States does not perform well. We pay more; we have greater problems paying medical bills; we have excessive out-of-pocket spending; we have greater hassles with insurers; and we have the greatest disparities in access and affordability based on income levels.
We clearly needed reform, but will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) correct these deficiencies? It looks grim. The law has perpetuated the flawed system that we already have, one based on the U.S. version of dysfunctional private insurance plans plus a welfare program - Medicaid.
PPACA does include some important insurance regulations such as guaranteed issue and removal of annual and life-time spending caps, but it doesn't do much to end the administrative hassles that are designed to protect the insurers from loss (i.e., protect them from having to pay medical bills). In fact, by making plans with low actuarial values the new standard, patients will face even greater out-of-pocket expenses and administrative hassles when they access health care. The government subsidies are not adequate to reduce the problems that patients already have with paying their medical bills.
Although other countries have special provisions for low-income individuals, Medicaid is unique in that beneficiaries are enrolled in an entirely different program that generally pays much lower rates than do private insurers. Thus the Medicaid networks of willing providers can be quite different from the networks for the private insurers, which in themselves also can vary greatly from plan to plan. Care can be very disruptive as individuals move in and out of the Medicaid program because of fluctuations in their eligibility, or move between various private plans based on such factors as employment, place of residence, or premium affordability. Such disruptions can aggravate the access problems noted in this study.
Another important observation in this study is the protection that is afforded by Medicare. Quoting from Schoen et al, "US adults under age sixty-five were significantly more likely to report insurance paperwork, disputes, or insurance surprises than were those sixty-five and older and covered by Medicare (35 percent compared to 16 percent). The high rates of insurance concerns among younger adults may stem from unstable coverage as well as complex benefit designs."
What we needed was a program that includes everyone, funds care equitably, eliminates financial barriers to care, provides automatic life-long enrollment, provides choice of any health care professionals and facilities, and has public funding that would ensure adequate capacity in the system. A single payer, improved Medicare for all would have those goals.
Instead, we'll be pouring even more money into the system we have, and still compare unfavorably to these other high-income nations, that is unless we are willing to do something about it. We need to tell our policy makers, "It's the insurance, stupid!"
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