Group Tries to Make Obamacare Understandable By TED GRIGGS
More than 120 companies, civic organizations, advocacy groups and healthcare associations have banded together to help Louisiana residents understand Obamacare and its impact. “Basically, we started (it) to get unbiased information out into the marketplace to help people navigate the new Affordable Care Act landscape and to disseminate health and wellness information,” said John Maginnis, spokesman for the Louisiana Healthcare Education Coalition. The coalition provides information on the major drivers of healthcare costs, the importance of personal wellness, and the need for access to quality health- John Maginnis care. The group works with healthcare providers, small businesses, faith-based institutions, employers, community leaders, patient advocacy groups and the public. The coalition partners include everyone from AARP Louisiana, Bunkie General Hospital, and the
Louisiana Academy of Family Physicians to New Orleans Faith Health Alliance and the Vietnamese Young Leaders Association. Maginnis said the coalition serves solely as an education resource and neither endorses public policy nor seeks to create it. The coalition began getting the word out in the third week of March with back-to-back-to back press conferences in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport. The group also held a conference in Lafayette, and events are set for Aug. 14 in Alexandria and Aug. 15
in Lake Charles. And the group is picking up new members by the day, he said. One of the latest members, the Louisiana Municipal Association, joined in early July. The LMA’s members are helping push information down to the grassroots level. The coalition is entirely a volunteer effort, Maginnis said. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana provided some administrative support and trained about 40 employees to serve as speakers. But that number is also increasing. “We’re undergoing a ‘Train the Trainers’ program for the partners to train their speakers,” Maginnis said. The coalition’s organizing partners, the Louisiana Public Health Institute and Louisiana Healthcare Quality Forum, are coming on board with more speakers every day, he said. It takes only a couple of hours of training for the volunteers, since most generally bring a lot of knowledge to the table. That familiarity is helpful when the Affordable Care Act’s situation changes frequently, Maginnis said.
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The coalition’s website, LHEC.net, also helps groups with their own educational efforts. Groups can click on the “request a speaker” tab, and fill in some information, such as the name of the organization and the type of event group and a volunteer will get in touch about the event. The website also contains simple but detailed explanations for some of the most commonly asked questions, such as: Will my premiums go up because of healthcare reform? Many people are likely to see rates increase. But the good news is that the changes mean thousands more Louisiana residents will have health coverage. “The challenge comes from the fact that insurance companies must take all customers, no matter their health condition. It costs us more to cover people with pre-existing conditions. That’s why rates will go up for everyone. Also, health insurance companies can no longer charge different rates for people of different ages. Young and old people will all be put into the same pool when we set insurance rates. That means many younger people will see their rates go up; older people will likely see them go down. Plus, the new law says all plans must include more benefits. That means we will add to all plans such things as: ER services, maternity care, mental health, lab services, pediatric care, and vision services. You may not have had these benefits in your original plan. More benefits add to the cost of plans.” The website also touches on major changes the Affordable Care Act will bring about in 2014, including the elimination of annual limits; preventing insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions; the requirement that everyone buy insurance; and the penalties if one does not. The site also contains information on how small employers will be affected by the changes, where to get help navigating the health insurance marketplace and the major drivers of healthcare costs. The latter include an aging population, rising rates of chronic disease, lifestyle factors and personal health choices. “There’s a tremendous void of information surrounding the act. If you look at recent polls done by Kaiser Family Foundation, 67 percent of the uninsured in the United States say they don’t have enough information about the ACA to understand how it will impact their lives,” Maginnis said. “You can miss deadlines. You can miss opportunities. There’s a lot at stake, and we’re just trying to contribute.”
For more information, go to LHEC.net, call 1-855-871-5497, or email LHEC@bcbsla.com.