How Oscar Health’s Struggles Became A Case Study In The Age Of Obamacare
Startup companies like Oscar were initially attracted by the potential of millions of new customers added to the individual market by the health law. But the reality has been messier. there's an uphill battle to reach out about health care coverage to immigrants who are in the country legally.
The New York Times:
Struggling For Profit Selling Health Insurance In State Marketplaces
Oscar Health was going to be a new kind of insurance company. Started in 2012, just in time to offer plans to people buying insurance under the new federal health care law, the business promised to use technology to push less costly care and more consumer-friendly coverage. “We’re trying to build something that’s going to turn the industry on its head,” Joshua Kushner, one of the company’s founders, said in 2014, as Oscar began to enroll its first customers. These days, though, Oscar is more of a case study in how brutally tough it is to keep a business above water in the state marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act. (Abelson, 6/19)
The Associated Press:
Seasonal Farmworkers Face Uphill Battle For Health Insurance
Seasonal agricultural workers were just finishing a meal after a long day of planting sweet potato seeds when Julie Pittman pulled up to their camp. Pittman, a paralegal with the Farmworker Unit of Legal Aid of North Carolina, worked to get their attention. The health care law that passed in 2010 requires you to have health insurance, she said, speaking in Spanish. If you don't get it, she said, you could be fined. "Cuánto cuesta?" asked a worker, wanting to know the cost. In the United States legally through the H-2A visa program, these farmworkers, like most American citizens and legal residents, must be insured. But reaching them is an uphill battle. (6/20)
And in other national health care news —
Stat:
Zika Virus Spreading Rapidly Across Puerto Rico
There are alarming signs the Zika virus is spreading rapidly in Puerto Rico, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday. Blood banks on the island have seen a steady rise in the portion of donations that have to be rejected because they contain Zika virus. Last week, 1.1 percent of the donated units were contaminated. (Branswell, 6/17)
The New York Times:
Birth Control Via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar
A quiet shift is taking place in how women obtain birth control. A growing assortment of new apps and websites now make it possible to get prescription contraceptives without going to the doctor. The development has potential to be more than just a convenience for women already on birth control. Public health experts hope it will encourage more to start, or restart, using contraception and help reduce the country’s stubbornly high rate of unintended pregnancies, as well as the rate of abortions. (Belluck, 6/19)
USA Today:
Pediatricians: U.S. Not Doing Enough To Halt Childhood Lead Poisoning
Despite dramatic declines in childhood lead poisoning over the past few decades, the United States is doing too little to prevent new poisonings, the nation’s leading group of pediatricians said Monday. The statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, published in the journal Pediatrics, comes at a time when lead is receiving renewed public attention, largely due to the apparent poisoning of thousands of children who drank contaminated water in Flint, Mich. (Painter, 6/20)