Media Inquires, please contact policy@mainecahc.org or call 1-800-965-7476
Ann Woloson, executive director of Consumers for Affordable Health Care, a nonprofit advocacy group, said ACA insurance is especially crucial in Maine because of the large number of people who are self-employed, or own small businesses that don’t have employer-based insurance.
“If you look at our industries — self-employed people, like the fishing industry and lobstering — some people are going to roll the dice and go uninsured if these tax credits go away,” Woloson said.
Woloson said that would leave those who remain in the marketplace in an insurance pool of older, sicker workers, driving costs up. And people who are uninsured tend to delay their care, also driving up costs with more reliance on emergency department care. System costs will also increase if people use less preventive care and let their health conditions deteriorate before seeking health care, which is also more costly.
“What that means is everyone would pay more for their health insurance,” Woloson said.
A watchdog group found that 8.5 percent of private hospitals and 22.6 percent of for-profit hospitals in the U.S. are owned by private equity.
As if we needed more evidence that our healthcare system needs serious reform, Consumers for Affordable Health Care has released a new survey of Maine voters showing that almost half of Maine households have incurred medical debt in the past two years. Significantly, two-thirds of them were covered by insurance at the time.
