By Pauline Bartolone, Capital Public Radio
Thu, Jan 15 2015
When Dennie Wright went to sign up for Affordable Care Act insurance last year, it wasn’t a hard decision. His insurance agent told him he had only one insurer – Anthem Blue Cross – that he could buy from on the exchange, Covered California.
Wright lives in a modest house overlooking a pasture in Indian Valley. It’s a tiny alpine community at the northern end of the Sierra Mountains, close to the border with Nevada. He lives in one of 250 zip codes where Blue Shield of California stopped selling individual insurance policies in 2014.
“That was new to us, you know, Covered California. Anthem Blue Cross was the insurance carrier. Then of course, three months later I have a heart attack,” says Wright.
More than once, he was flown across the state line to Reno for care. Wright and his wife, Kathy, now have piles of medical bills and insurance paperwork. Anthem Blue Cross covers emergencies when they happen out-of-state but not routine doctor care in another state.
But Wright says traveling to doctors within California is not as safe or as convenient for him as going to Reno.
He continues to see the Nevada doctors who put a defibrillator in his chest and saved his life. Anthem Blue Cross will pay for some of the bills, but the Wrights still don’t know if everything will be covered.
There are other insurance options for Wright, but not through Covered California. Although he didn’t need a subsidy, he was left in the same position as people in his area who do need financial help to buy insurance. Lower income people cannot take their business to a competitor, because the exchange is the only place customers can use federal subsidies to help them buy health insurance. And for those people, Anthem is the only option.
“I mean, you should have some choices, especially if you’re going to have one that’s not going to cover you in the places you choose to go,” Wright says.
source : Limited Insurance Choices Frustrate Some Patients In California
