As the health care reform talks heat up, this is probably as good a time as any to sit back and look at the Massachusetts experience. Just over three years ago, Massachusetts passed a “near universal coverage” health care law. Critics on both sides predicted the measure would be expensive for individuals and for state government.
Well, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way, at least not so far. It is true that health costs have gone up in Massachusetts (as they have elsewhere) but the state’s health mandate is not what is driving health care cost increases there. Further, even though many more Massachusetts residents now have health insurance, employers, individuals, and the state government are paying roughly the same proportion of health care costs as was the case before the Massachusetts law took effect. This is important to note as “shared responsibility” between employers, state government, and individuals was a cornerstone of the 2006 Massachusetts law.
According to a recent report by the Center for Health Law and Economics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, commissioned by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, the bulk (60 percent) of health care cost increases in the state is due to either healthcare inflation (that was not related to the 2006 law) or to new enrollment in already-existing plans (31 percent). The report indicates that only about 8 percent of the increase is from the introduction of Commonwealth Care, and the remainder is due to the new Fair Share assessment that was levied on firms that do not make a “fair and reasonable” contribution toward the health costs of their workers, and the tax penalty for individuals who do not obtain health insurance if it is available and affordable.
Assuming that some sort of health reform passes this year at the national level, I wonder what people will be saying three years from now about our national health care reform experience.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
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I remember when Massachusetts touted its Mandated Healthcare for everyone and heard all the Yes-Yes-Yes praise reported: mainly from Single moms and people with Large Families (Read as More than 3 kids)
ReplyDeleteThen the Plan was enacted.
Then there was SILENCE. Here in NYC, I never heard another peep about it. It's the Media Silence that bothers me. A friend in Boston tells me that when he was a consultant, he had to pay $300 a month out of pocket for his separate Health coverage before he got a job with healthcare.
If such a plan were enacted here in NY, a lot of professional single people who are ABOVE poverty but WAY BELOW AIG Executive pay levels would suddenly find themselves strapped for cash for everyday needs. And we don't care what happens to the poor: Medicaid already takes care of them. Medicare already takes care of he Elderly. Child Health Plus takes care of the stressed families in the middle. But Us Single Workers would get shafted every month.
And for what? Increased profit revenues to Insurance Companies through Mandated Premiums for EVERY WORKING AMERICAN?
That's not Healthcare for All. That's Guaranteed Premium Revenue for every Insurance Company in Existence!
It's like a Single Adult is being punished because he or she didn't fill their home with kids. And HELLO! We're ALREADY subsidizing the Child Health Plus crowd, the Medicaid Crowd, the Medicare Crowd and the Insured Crowd with the taxes already taken out of our paychecks every week!
This is not good policy.