How do copays affect the decisions you or your family make about your healthcare and your budget?

Is there anything else you’d like us to know?

Please tell us how some or all of these changes affect you, your family, or your community. Mandatory co-pays may, on the surface, seem like a good idea – they give people a financial stake in their healthcare, it prepares people for the world of private insurance, etc. However, the reality is that it simply makes it more difficult for some of our most vulnerable citizens to obtain healthcare. The typical result, that I have seen as a community social worker, is that people simply won’t get the healthcare they need. This sets them up for a health care crisis later on down the road which is much more expensive and/or they just live with always feeling “not so good” which decreases their productivity and the ability they have to add economic value to their own household as well as the community as a whole and/or it unnecessarily shortens their life. In addition, this can have negative impacts on healthcare providers. I work part-time at a clinic whose mission is to make healthcare available for everyone in our community. Our clinic will continue to serve our patients whether they are able to make their co-pay or not – at least for the foreseeable future, however, this will have a negative impact on our overall budget and will make it more difficult for us to pursue other quality initiatives.