Too Much Responsibility?

From the Seattle Times via Right Wing News:

Roughly 40,000 poor people have been dropped from the Oregon Health Plan this year because of their failure to make monthly premium payments, some as low as $6 a month.
The departure of more than one-third of the 88,000 poor people from the state-subsidized Oregon Health Plan Standard program has far exceeded the expectations of many state officials.

Advocates for the poor say the premiums are too expensive for some people and the government may have overestimated the ability of people to mail a check.

“It’s an enormous barrier,” said Ellen Pinney, director of the Oregon Health Action Committee. “Let alone the $6, there is the whole issue of writing a check or getting a money order, putting it in an envelope with a stamp and putting it in the mail to this place in Portland that must receive it by the due date.”

One can only assume that these 40,000 people are also without electricity, gas, phone service, homes, cars, and other services that require you to mail in a bill. And in fact, that would be a correct assumption.

State statistics show that most enrollees are about 40 percent below the poverty level and tend to be jobless and often homeless and have a high prevalence of mental illness and drug or alcohol abuse.

In reading some of the comments at Right Wing News, you get the impression that the system is a boondoggle to begin with, which might explain why some people didn’t mail in their six dollar checks.

I want to have sympathy. I really do. But you know, it’s six bucks a month. Six bucks. I just can’t get past that number. Even adding in the cost of an envelope and a stamp, it’s less than seven bucks a month for health coverage. I don’t think that’s too much to ask even the bottom rung of society to pay.