Even among the insured, cost of illness can be devastating, Harvard-backed poll finds
Despite the Affordable Care Act’s much-touted expansion of health coverage in the U.S., a first-ever poll of America’s seriously ill demonstrates that insurance alone isn’t enough to protect against the high cost of care. The poll showed that though 91 percent of respondents had health insurance, 53 percent of those with insurance had trouble paying their medical bills. “These are not stories about the uninsured, these are stories about people with an insurance card,” said Professor Robert Blendon, who discussed the poll Wednesday at the Harvard Chan School, which cooperated on the effort with The Commonwealth Fund and The New York Times. “For 50 years in this country, we’ve been debating how to help people who aren’t insured. And the assumption is once you get them the card they are protected for the rest of their lives. [We live] in a world where seriously ill people with insurance, including Medicare, are facing staggering...