PHILADELPHIA — Advocates of the Affordable Care Act, focused until now on persuading people to buy health insurance, have moved to a crucial new phase: making sure the eight million Americans who did so understand their often complicated policies and use them properly.
The political stakes are high, as support for the health care law will hinge at least partly on whether people have good experiences with their new coverage. Advocates of the law also say teaching the newly insured how to be smart health care consumers could advance the law's central goal of keeping costs down, such as by discouraging emergency room visits, while still improving care.
For those reasons, hospitals, clinics, insurers and health advocacy groups around the country are organizing education efforts, aimed particularly at lower-income people who might not have had insurance in years, if ever. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has jumped in, too, with a project called "From Coverage to Care," which provides educational materials to community groups and medical providers who are trying to teach health and insurance literacy.
"It's not like you enroll and, voilà, you immediately know how to use it," said Rebecca Cashman, a program coordinator for Resources for Human Development, a nonprofit group that is trying to help Philadelphians understand their new coverage. "There are a lot of people who really have some big questions about 'what now?' "
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/us/newly-insured-by-health-law-millions-face-a-learning-curve.html
