A Mass. mess

Just as I got on my high horse yesterday to tout the greatness of Massachusetts' health care plan, it comes to light that tens of thousands of state residents, most of who are involved in Commonwealth Care, a state-run program, have been dropped from their plans. According to the Globe:

The state's eligibility documents are complex, advocates said, leading some patients to have their insurance terminated - even though they are eligible for coverage - because they made mistakes filling out the forms. Mail sent by the state to the wrong address is also cited as another reason coverage is dropped.

In other instances, the state misinterprets information on the forms and mistakenly bounces people out of the program, advocates said.

Patients terminated by the state can unknowingly rack up thousands of dollars in medical bills only to discover that those expenses will not be reimbursed. The only way they can get the money back is to sue the state.

Said the office manager of a hospital who helped one her employees navigate the system: "I would consider myself a fairly educated person," Smidy said, "and I got confused."

The state responded that it is working to upgrade its computer systems and that should fix some of the programs. We'll see. It's problems like this that make me wonder if the U.S. as a whole could ever run a government health program, let alone the ONLY government program.

[See WSJ Health Blog for additional coverage.]