This is Sarah Kliff at Ezra Klein’s blog:
I wrote a story last week about Congress quietly closing health reform’s Consumer Assistance Program…
Thirty-five states received a total of $30 million to help consumers find affordable coverage, answer health insurance queries and appeal denied claims…. Texas … received a $2.8 million grant and, with it, hired nine employees who have handled about 6,000 phone calls.Do the math, and the federal government has spent $466 on each call that the Texas Consumer Health Assistance Program has handled….
Does the Texas Consumer Health Assistance Program cost more per person than the services of a private health insurance broker? The numbers suggest it does. Does it work with a more vulnerable population that has more complex health insurance needs? My reporting points in that direction. Would the program be more worthwhile spending if more Texans used it? Probably.
eHealth portal. Also, see Greg Scandlen’s recent post, One More Oops.
This is the kind of wasteful spending that doesn’t get talked about.
Free is no fun. Then the government can’t waste our money.
Maybe it would work better if they doubled the grant money.
Maybe they should have paid for some consumer awareness programs about the consumer assistance programs in Texas. It was a well-kept secret.
I’ve used eHealthInsurance.com for years as a research tool to demonstrate low-cost insurance. Whenever someone tells me we need health insurance exchanges because people don’t know where to purchase insurance if their job doesn’t offer coverage, I tell them we already have one — it’s called eHealthInsurance.com.