Posted on 07/24/2010 6:24:08 PM PDT by Lorianne
Marie-Grace Turner of the Galen Institute, one of the best health-care analysts out there, has done a remarkable study of the failing health care system in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts mess should matter to all of us.
"Massachusetts and the federal government built their reform efforts using similar architectural plans -- strict regulation of health insurance, mandates on individuals and businesses, expensive new taxpayer-funded subsidies, and a major expansion of Medicaid -- and both share a central structural flaw in failing to address rising health costs," Marie-Grace Turner writes.
A highlight from Turner's bullet-points on the monster costs in Massachusetts:
"On average, health insurance now costs $14,723 for a family of four in Massachusetts, compared to $13,027 nationally. That's nearly 12 percent higher than the national average. Reform has not made insurance more affordable," Turner notes.
"[S]ome small Massachusetts employers are dropping health insurance and sending their workers into the taxpayer-funded health insurance pool. They say they have no choice because of relentlessly rising costs. This spells trouble for taxpayers."
According to Turner, the Massachusetts system shows "the near impossibility of containing costs in a system where incentives go in exactly the opposite direction."
Read the whole thing.
Massachusetts Warning Signs http://www.galen.org/component,8/action,show_content/id,14/category_id,0/blog_id,1442/type,33/
Then why in Heavens name is Mitt Romney the top Republican candidate?
You all remember when the time comes that it was Mitt Romney who was so proud of the fact that he was the one to shove this mess down our throats. Now they can’t control it.
Money talks.
Two words: Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin hasn’t made up her mind whether to throw her hat into the ring yet, or to use her kingmaking influence. Once she does either one, I think we’ll see Romney falling out of favor rather sharply.
Don’t bet that she won’t endorse or run with Romney.
After all, she just endorsed McCain & even as bad as Romney might be, he will get far more electoral votes than McCain did in 08.
He might even win.
And that is the problem.
She does have that wild hair, though I still see it as simply keeping her promise to John McCain to return the favor of having tapped her for the VP candidate in 2008. McCain is regional with limited impact, but any presidential candidate would have to be national. Romney would evince gagging and retching from coast to coast and there would be a nationally divisive cat fight in the GOP ranks. Not even Sarah is up for that kind of brinksmanship, methinks.
Most of us asked the same question about McCain. The Republican Party keeps foisting these losers on us (well, that and stupid open primaries).
The rats have the answer in the federal health care bill: price controls, rationing, global budgets, single payer, and many restrictions on private health care outside of the rat health care regime. The health care bill provides federal authority to impose price controls on state insurers. We have just seen the beginning of the skirmish. When the smoke clears, private insurance and much of private medicine will be finished. The only remaining insurers will be effectively government controlled.
FRIGG'N DIMWITS!
One of my favorite parts of Obamacare is admission to medical school based upon race and sex, not grades or aptitude. I’ve heard that the late Michael Jackson’s doctor was an affirmative admissions guy who would have flunked out but didn’t because of special rules. Also heard he needed special help to pass his boards. Well, that quality is now coming for all of us.
That was their plan all along.
For the whole series of Zero dollar bills, go here:
Hey, I don’t support it, I’m just stating how it’s been done. It’s the idiotic reason the GOP couldn’t beat a wounded Clinton and got creamed by Obama. And if they do it again it will be why the GOP goes down in 2012.
I know you don’t support it - I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear.
Well LL, I never bashed Sarah - I don’t think that she can win but I would vote for her in a second.
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