Uninsured focus of health events Effort aimed to raise awareness

BANGOR – Friday marked the conclusion of Cover the Uninsured Week, a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of the plight of the roughly 44 million Americans who lack health care insurance and to bring as many as possible into coverage plans.

In Maine, the week was marked by dozens of events at community sites across the state. Schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, town halls and health clinics put together activities ranging from a single informational table to “health fairs” complete with free health screenings, nutritious snacks and entertaining clowns.

Early in the day, Gov. John Baldacci spoke to a small audience at the Penobscot Community Health Center as area health care providers were setting up their displays under a big canvas tent.

Looking careworn after a contentious legislative session and weeks of gritty negotiations with potential buyers for the bankrupt Eastern Pulp and Paper mills in Brewer and Lincoln, the governor kept his comments brief.

Baldacci used the occasion to praise community health centers like PCHC that provide comprehensive health and dental services to adults and children.

About 80 percent of PCHC’s clients are enrolled in MaineCare, and the clinic is expanding rapidly to meet the needs of a growing population of low-income families and individuals in the Bangor area.

The governor also touted his Dirigo Health reform initiative, which later this summer will begin offering subsidized health insurance to uninsured employees of small businesses, the self-employed and individuals.

About 140,000 Mainers lack health care coverage of any sort and must either pay out of pocket for services they need or rely on the mandated charity of the state’s hospitals and health clinics, which must provide essential care regardless of ability to pay.

Both options are distasteful and tend to discourage consumers from seeking medical attention until they’re seriously ill, at which point their care – often received in hospital emergency rooms – is more expensive and less likely to be effective.

Aside from humanitarian considerations, this high-cost, unreimbursed care forces clinics and hospitals to make up their losses by overcharging the insurance companies that provide coverage to people who are able to afford it. Insurance companies, in turn, jack up the price of their policies to keep their profits acceptable; these premium hikes force more consumers to drop their policies.

In Maine, about $300 million a year goes to paying for the health care of people who lack insurance and cannot pay out of pocket.

Interrupting this “cost-shifting” spiral is the focus of state and national efforts to bring health care costs under control while improving consumer access to quality health care services.

Of Maine’s uninsured, 21,000 are children under 18. An estimated 11,000 of these youngsters are eligible for free or very inexpensive coverage under the state’s MaineCare program, which pays for routine checkups, vaccines, care for illness and injury, hospitalization, diagnostic tests, surgery and medicine.

MaineCare, even with recent cuts in its budget, also pays for physical therapy, mental health care, dental treatment, vision care and many other services for children.

Under Maine’s expanded eligibility waivers, health care for adults is also covered, though with more restrictions.

According to Darcy Shargo of the Maine Primary Care Association, a sponsor of Maine’s Cover the Uninsured Week activities, many families simply don’t realize they may be eligible for MaineCare even though they have livable incomes.

“People think that just because there’s a working adult in the house, they can’t qualify,” Shargo said. “Or they’ve heard that if they have assets like a house or a car, they can’t. They have all these misconceptions.”

Children in households that earn 200 percent or less of the federal poverty level – that’s $37,000 for a family of four – are eligible. Parents may also qualify, and even some adults without children.

More information about enrolling in MaineCare is available by calling your local Department of Human Services office.