Most new insurance plans sold on Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges will have deductibles greater than $1000. That’s the kind of number that’s going to make people think twice about going to the emergency room when they experience shortness of breath or chest pain. Unfortunately, a new study shows it’s also the kind of “skin in the game” that will probably cause people of low income to avoid emergency departments, even when they need such care.
Without a doubt, we need to find ways to reduce the use of emergency rooms for non-emergent problems. Having people pay more out-of-pocket for emergency room care ought to help us achieve this goal. When you skin your knee, a bit of skin in the game might be all it takes to dissuade you from a trip to the ER.
But we also do not want to dissuade people from going to the emergency room when they are suffering from a true emergency. The problem is, most patients don’t have medical degrees, and don’t necessarily know whether the symptoms they are experiencing require emergency room care. This could be an especially important problem for people with low incomes, for whom such deductibles loom quite large in their overall well-being. One visit to the emergency room could be the difference between paying the next few months of mortgage or not. That’s a good incentive to decide that the shortness of breath you are experiencing is really just a sign of a common cold… (Read more and view comments at Forbes)
