Monday, January 12, 2009
Fellow Boomers. Below is an article published by The Examiner yesterday. It reviews what can happen when states institute mandated health plans for their citizens. As a Baby Boomer you need to be informed and educated on any and all changes in our health care system. There is movement in both Houses of Congress and our new President for radical reform. Be aware of the word "radical" in the months to come. Our system, though not perfect, sure beats government plans.
Best regards,
Denny
Cincinnati
Universal coverage? First, look at the disaster in
Massachusetts
By Examiner Editorial
- 1/11/09
To much fanfare from both right and left in 2006, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to require all residents to buy
health insurance. A new state health insurance clearinghouse was created, with taxpayers subsidizing those who couldn’t afford to buy
coverage. Then Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, promised that “every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable
health insurance.” Yet just two years later, Romney’s much-heralded “solution” — touted by many as the model for a national
program — has become an embarrassing flop.
Just a year after the universal coverage law passed, The New York Times reported, state insurers were already jacking up rates to
twice the national average. According to Dr. Paul Hsieh, a physician and founding member of Freedom and Individual Rights in
Medicine, 43 mandatory benefits — including those that many people did not want or need, such as invitro fertilization — raised the
costs of coverage for Massachusetts residents by as much as 56 percent, depending upon an individual’s income status. So much for
“affordable” health care.
Small businesses with more than 10 employees were required to provide health insurance or pay an extra fee to subsidize uninsured
low-income residents, yet the overall costs of the program increased more than $400 million — 85 percent higher than original
projections. To make up the difference, payments to health care providers were slashed, so many doctors and dentists in
Massachusetts began refusing to take on new patients. In the state with the highest physician/patient ratio in the nation, some people
now have to wait more than a year for a simple physical exam.
The irony is that Massachusetts officials reluctantly admitted that, despite increased enrollment, the state is still far from universal
coverage — the original goal of the landmark law. To make matters worse, Massachusetts is grappling with a multibillion-dollar
deficit while Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick desperately tries to slow down those still-spiraling health care costs, which he said last
week were “not sustainable.”
If this sounds just like Canadian-style socialized medicine, that’s because it is. Massachusetts residents now pay more for less access
to health care, yet their state still has an uninsured problem!
Government mandates — even those originally billed as “market-based solutions” — always turn into a “rights-violating road to
disaster,” Hsieh says. Barack Obama’s health policy advisers should take a good look at the smoldering wreckage in the Bay State
before trying to impose any such “universal coverage” on the rest of the nation.
