UNINSURED AND MEDICAID
At The Access Project, we believe that true change occurs when communities have engaged, informed and confident community leaders who can influence the policymaking process, articulate the needs of the uninsured and the underserved, and work together with sometimes unlikely allies to find solutions. To accomplish this goal, The Access Project specializes in helping community groups gather data to be used to inform policy decisions and design strategies to change policy.
Featured Publication
Eliminating Adult Dental Coverage in Medicaid: An Analysis of the Massachusetts Experience
Written by Access Project Senior Policy Analyst Carol Pryor and published by the Kaiser Family Foundation. This report examines the impact of the MassHealth dental coverage reductions. The report found that MassHealth enrollees faced major barriers to accessing dental care following the benefit cuts, many fewer enrollees received dental services, and many suffered from the effects of untreated oral disease and from toothlessness and its associated physical and social consequences. Others were living in constant pain to avoid losing teeth. In addition, the report found that savings to the state from eliminating the dental benefits were minimal compared to overall program costs.
Download the report from http://www.kff.org/medicaid/7378.cfm
Community Access Monitoring Survey (CAMS) project
The Access Project collaborated with community-based organizations to survey the uninsured about their experiences getting care at local, mainly safety-net, health care institutions. Called the Community Access Monitoring Survey (CAMS), the survey gathered data from over 10,000 uninsured people in 18 states.
The national report "Paying for Health Care When You're Uninsured: How Much Support Does the Safety Net Offer?" presents national findings from the Community Access Monitoring Survey. The sample included 6,448 respondents who received outpatient health care,at local facilities in the previous year, while uninsured. The facilities were located in urban/suburban or rural communities in 18 states. The findings indicate that uninsured people face serious finanical barriers to obtaining care, even at safety-net facilities, and are often burdened with debts as a result of obtaining care. Moreover, these debts may deter them from seeking further care.
There are also local reports for each participating community that presents the findings for that specific location. All the CAMS related reports are available for download in our CAMS Publications section.
