Massachusetts: The Canary in the Coal Mine for ObamaCare

Five years ago, Massachusetts adopted its “universal health care” plan, which served as the template for President Obama’s subsequent national health care legislation. However, Massachusetts’ problems of rising health costs and worsening access foreshadow similar problems for the rest of America — as well as how to avoid them.

The Massachusetts Medical Society recently reported that the state law has resulted in “longer patient wait times [and] continued difficult access to primary care physicians.” The average wait time in Massachusetts to see an internal medicine physician is now 48 days — double the national average. Over half of primary care practices are no longer accepting new patients. Fewer physicians are accepting the state-run Commonwealth Care and Commonwealth Choice insurance plans. So although Massachusetts politicians frequently boast that they have increased “coverage,” many patients cannot find doctors to provide them with actual medical care.

Meanwhile health costs continue to skyrocket out of control, both for the state government and for privately insured patients. In a recent Forbes article, Sally Pipes notes that over the next 10 years, the plan will cost the state government $2 billion more than predicted. Similarly, prior to the new law insurance prices in Massachusetts increased at a rate 3.7% slower than the national average; after the “reform,” they’re increasing 5.8% faster.

America may thus experience a combined internal and external exodus of the best, most independent, most conscientious doctors out of the government-controlled system — akin to how the best scientists, musicians, and artists fled the Eastern Bloc countries for the West during the Cold War. The remaining doctors will be the ones more willing to abdicate their professional responsibility to offer their patients their best independent expertise and instead practice “cookie cutter” medicine as dictated by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.

I've lived in Massachusetts most of my life and have always worked for a living - getting HMO family plan through my employer. Up until Romney care, it was never a hassle. For a small co-payment (usually around $10), My family made an appointment when they had to and that was that. Quality of health care was good, wait times were minimal.

Since Romney Care was implemented, it has definitely gotten worse and going to the doctor now reminds me of when I was in the military - mostly "hurry up and wait" and a lot of bureaucracy for even the most routine check-up.

I hardly go to a doctor but will try not to go again unless I have to. This is because those who don't work for a living are sucking up all the services with their "free" health care vouchers. If they get the sniffles or stub their toe, they have all day to sit around and watch game shows and soap operas in the waiting room - working people just don't have time for that nonsense.

Going to the doctor in Massachusetts now has the feeling of going to a government welfare office. You are surrounded by lowlife who glare at you in your shirt and tie (they are usually dressed in baggy sweatpants, old sneakers and hooded shirts) and when it is your time to see the doctor, you are placed in a small room while the harried doctor works 3-5 patients at a time from room to room like an assembly line.

As a result, I am avoiding the entire system as much as possible. Even though I am one of the ones actually paying into the system (and have been since I was old enough to work), I feel I have been pushed to the outside. So I am skipping annual checkups and making sure that I eat better and exercise more so hopefully I don't have to go back until I am on my deathbed.

For the rest of America, you want nothing to do with government health care - trust me on this. You also don't want Mitt Romney as your president either. What he perpetrated on Massachusetts is the biggest atrocity since the British levied the Stamp Tax back in the 1700s.

As a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, I've struggled with that question myself. Why do so many people here vote liberal - even in light of the fact that liberal policies have so clearly failed?

Several reasons for this. First of all, Massachusetts (and New England in general) has the highest density of colleges in the nation. Many people from all over the world send their children here for college where they have their heads programmed for liberal ideology from their professors - who are mostly 1960s hippie types. Since New England is probably the best place to live in terms of climate, geography (easy access to beaches, skiing, hiking, etc.), hospitals, education and culture, many of them decide to stay and raise families here.

Which leads to the next factor. Children in Massachusetts are bred to hate conservatives and worship liberals. Growing up here in the late 1960s and early 1970s, virtually every home had a photo of JFK on the wall somewhere. I was going through school as Watergate was raging and all my teachers would rail against the "evil" Richard Nixon and when Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976, you had male teachers hugging and kissing each other in the hallway the next morning - I'm not exaggerating. One clear memory I have of high school was that the principal basically suspended class on January 20, 1977 so we could watch the inauguration of Jimmy Carter live in our classrooms on the closed-circuit TVs they used to have. My beaming history teacher had the class do an essay on how we thought America would change for the better now that Jimmy Carter was running things.

I can go on and on but basically, people here in Massachusetts are bred vote straight Democratic ticket - no matter what - and to be intolerant and even hateful of other points of view. Especially a conservative point of view. While it is not as bad as it used to be and conservatives are making inroads outside of Boston proper, it can still be a career-ender to be "outed" as a conservative at your place of work. For that reason, I keep my politics to myself in the workplace.

Another factor I did not point out in my original reply is that we have a lot of "old money" here in Massachusetts. That is to say, there are a large number of "trust fund" babies living in the Greater Boston area, especially in the inner ring of suburbs like Brookline, Cambridge, Newton, etc.

Since these people grew up never having to worry about money or about how they are going to support their own families, they tend to have a lot of free time on their hands. So they often take on "social causes" and spend that free time raising money for their pet charities at cocktail parties and dinners where they pat each other on the back for how socially conscious they are.

Naturally they are jealous of people who started out with nothing and became wealthy on account of their own efforts. It makes them feel inadequate because they basically had their money handed to them and they never had to do anything to earn it. So they are always looking for ways to knock people like that down a peg or two.

Liberals love to lord it over others. They like to be perceived as helping the poor, usually by way of handouts. However, they are not interested at all in the poor becoming self-sufficient. Their self-esteem depends upon these people always being needy and they have no interest in these people becoming self-sufficient on their own. That is why the welfare rolls are always growing despite 40+ years of "compassionate" big daddy government. The Great Society envisioned by liberals of the 1960s is apparently a nation of peasants that are completely dependent upon a small group of the chosen elite. This would be the trust fund set, who are assured of getting their own kids into Harvard and Yale so that they can lord it over the plebian masses in future generations.

Liberalism is really based on hate and envy. People that are successful on their own does not fit in at all with their Great Society and so they must be smashed down.

I grew up in the South and saw it switch from being dominated by the Democrat party to an almost solidly Republican region in a period of about a decade (mid 60’s to mid 70’s). Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were architects of that change, seizing on the movement of the Democrat party and articulating a clear message distinguishing the Republican Party from the Democrat Party.

While the leftists Democrats will claim the party shift was due to Republicans pandering to racists white attitudes in the South, this was not true. Lyndon Johnson could not have passed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in the mid 60’s without Republican votes because the Southern Democrats voted solidly against these bills. The EEOC was created under Nixon. The most outspoken anti-black politicians of that era (George Wallace and Lester Maddox) were Democrats, not Republicans. Reagan consistently advocated the same “color blind” vision of America articulated by Martin Luther King.

Look at the integrated South of today and you will see a region where blacks and whites mix freely in schools, at work, in restaurants, and at public gatherings. It is not uncommon to see couples of mixed race in the South today as well as mixed race offspring. This situation contrasts starkly with the North where the inner cities are populated with poor blacks dependent on the government. In my travels I see much more mixing of the races in the suburbs of cities in the South than in the North. When I bought my first house in the 1970’s real estate agents steered me away from suburban neighborhoods where a black family had “busted” a block. Today I live very comfortably in a mixed race neighborhood outside a southern city in a county where the population is almost 50/50 white/black. This would not be possible if all Republican or conservative whites were a bunch of cross burning racists as we are portrayed in the mainstream media.

We struggle here with liberal policies imposed by the Federal government. The public schools have become a disgrace due to liberal administrators who prefer to dumb down rather than raise up children. In the minority community we have many of the same problems you have in the urban centers where third and fourth generation fatherless “families” lack stability and the father figure to challenge their children to do their best. The role of churches in promoting morality has also declined as the clergy has become obsessed with promoting liberal causes. Patriotism is also on the decline as schools no longer work to instill love of country in young people. I began my school days with the pledge allegiance and singing of patriotic songs. Regretfully, those days are past in the progressive public schools where the indoctrinators try to create racial hatred by making today’s black children angry about the sins of whites who are long dead and buried.

The gutting of American manufacturing by the misguided “free trade” policies of our big government political elites united with Wall Street and multinational corporations is also having a harmful impact on this region. The south was impoverished after the Civil War and as a primarily agrarian region did not prosper as the Northeast and Midwest industrialized after the Civil War. The Great Depression also hit the region hard but most families survived by growing most of their own food and sharing with less fortunate relatives. In the 1950’s, 1960’s, and early 1970’s the industrial boom finally hit the region resulting in a rapidly expanding economy and the influx of many from other regions of the country. The deindustrialization of the 1990’s and 2000’s has hit the region particularly hard resulting in middle class jobs going away and chronically high unemployment, particularly in rural areas where the textile and furniture factories have gone away. In these regions big government is doing its best to turn fiercely self reliant southerners into wards of the nanny state. I’ve walked the floors of the few remaining textile factories and talked to the conservative workers in their 50’s and 60’s who see their children opting for the easier life of government dependency in a world with few middle class paying jobs. When the story is written about the rapid decline of America, hopefully there will be an honest historian who will describe the economic and social impact of the loss of 20+ million middle class manufacturing jobs. Without a strong economically independent middle class there cannot be a vibrant republican government. The middle class is shrinking fast while the government dependent class is growing rapidly. Within another decade I fear we will look a lot like Massachusetts.

While I do believe the policies of leftist Democrats have resulted in the accelerating decline of American, I recognize the people of the country voted for the politicians who are responsible for the situation we now face. Our founders believed a government which reflected the views of the common man and we have the government desired by the majority. It may not be the government and society I want but the people have spoken and the politicians do their bidding. Unfortunately I and many others in what remains of the productive class will be hurt as badly as those in the dependent class when the entire economy comes crashing down and we are equally poor under the dictatorship likely to follow.

My biggest disappointment with the liberals is their intolerance for other points of view. They are what they accuse conservatives of being and deep down in their hearts they must know they would not exist if conservatives were really as intolerant and mean spirited as we are portrayed. Leftists do not want to listen to other points of view because at their core they want to control. To control they must make others do their bidding and anyone who might appear to resist this control must be an enemy. In the 60’s they marched for “freedom” yet when they gained control of the government, academia, the media, and other institutions they did everything they could to shut down any opposition. They are hypocrites of the worst kind and I wonder if much of their hatred can be attributed to self loathing due to irreconcilable internal contradictions.

You mentioned fearing being known as a conservative at work. I’ve seen such retribution played out in the workplace and feel that in at least one instance I’ve lost a job, despite stellar performance, when a new boss from the North found out I had contributed to a local Republican candidate. I learned my lesson and will not discuss politics or religion with anyone outside my immediate family. Once I have retired from working in the private sector I may choose to post on blogs such as this with my real name but for now I must protect my livelihood in order to protect the family I support. I do fear that by the time I’m no longer in the workplace I will need to continue to be silent in order to avoid stirring the wrath of medical panels determining which elderly patients will receive life extending care and which will be denied treatment regardless of whether or not they can pay for it. I perceive we are fast approaching a dictatorship of the enlightened elites who will shower compassion on chosen groups who follow the line and eliminate those producers who try to remain free and independent from the established order, even if these independent minded citizens are minding their own business in a non-threating way. For the liberal elites who live a lie the existence of those who see the lie cannot be tolerated.

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