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.
These must be some seriously poor folks to be unable to make a token payment of $6 per month. Or one would think. Actually, they aren't that poor. There's another obstacle these poor, poor folks must strive to overcome. The rich are able to overcome such enormous obstacles, undoubtedly through some unscrupulous means, but many of Oregon's least fortunate are, well, not so fortunate.
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." 9:26 PM
