Mass. health plan drawing interest as model for US

The Boston Globe ^ | Monday, December 18, 2006 | Susan Milligan

[A. Pole]

WASHINGTON -- Universal healthcare, an issue the White House and Congress have largely abandoned since the early 1990s, has reemerged as an issue on Capitol Hill and around the country, with lawmakers looking to Massachusetts' landmark plan as a political and structural model for the nation's 46 million uninsured.

Healthcare specialists and government officials across the political spectrum say the healthcare debate has reached a turning point, with both liberals and conservatives ready to compromise.

Liberals are setting aside old demands for a single-payer system, while conservatives are showing a willingness to consider more government involvement in the provision of healthcare.

With Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, an architect of the state's plan, mulling a presidential run in 2008, healthcare is likely to be a big topic in the both the GOP and Democratic presidential primaries, party officials say.

[...]

Senator Edward M. Kennedy , Democrat of Massachusetts and the incoming chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he will call hearings in the new Congress to explore using the Bay State plan as a national model.

And some Republican senators think the plan might help US companies compete in the global market by easing the burden of rising healthcare costs. Representative Edward Markey , Democrat of Malden, said he will push for similar hearings in the House.

"It's a conspiracy of the left and the right," said Ed Haislmaier , a healthcare specialist with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

[...]

Senator Trent Lott , a conservative Mississippi Republican and a newly-named member of his party's leadership, called the Massachusetts plan "a good idea," and said he wanted to examine what parts of the program could be used elsewhere in the country.

[...]

[ejroth]

"universal health care" would be a disaster.

Here is one of the best articles I've read on this in the past few years.


http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2005/06/22/do_we_want_this

[lucysmom]

To redistribute wealth, via me paying someone elses' healthcare costs, while diluting the quality of my own SELF-PAID medical care, is where it's going.

When the uninsured in your area seek medical care at the local ER, who do you think pays now?

[trisham]

I hope other states can learn from our bad example.

[ElectricStrawberry]

A BIIIIIIG something to help get Romney into the big House. Don't think it'll fly one bit on a national level....

[lucysmom]

Just what we need, another program that costs much more than expected and will require tons of tax dollars. There are only two possible results, rationed healthcare or more expensive healthcare.

Your tax dollars pay for the health care of federal, state and local government employees, military personnel, Medicare and Medicaid recipients, and emergency care for the poor uninsured. In other words, taxpayers foot the bill for over 60% of the nations medical care. Then, after paying for all that medical care, those same taxpayers pay again for their own medical insurance and health care.

Because US health care consumes over 15% of GDP, more as a percentage of GDP than any other country, I doubt it could be more expensive even if we tried to make it so.

[traditional1]

"When the uninsured in your area seek medical care at the local ER, who do you think pays now?"

Thanks for making my point, and, do you want to expand it even further with socialized medicine for ALL, so we can pay for even more non-payers?

[LiveFree99]

I hate taxes as much as the next conservative, but I have one exception: a 100% surtax on all malpractice and civil judgement fees to attorneys over one million dollars. Call it the "Ambulance Chasers Windfall Profits Tax."

[traviskicks]

Blech.

[B-Chan]

Exactly. All this whining about "socialized medicine" is idiotic. We already have socialized medicine: it's called the County ER. Since we as a nation have already decided that government is going to be the healthcare provider of last resort, the only question left is exactly what form we want our ""socialized medicine" to take.

[A. Pole]

All this whining about "socialized medicine" is idiotic.

The defenders of status quo can take comfort in the fact that there will be one industrialized country without universal health care left - South Africa. They accept immigrants from USA so ...

[lucysmom]

do you want to expand it even further with socialized medicine for ALL, so we can pay for even more non-payers?

I want the most bang for my buck. Supporting a massive insurance structure along with delivered health care doesn't seem very efficient to me; particularly when that structure dictates what doctors I may see, and I must get their permission for medication, diagnostic procedures and treatments.

The first priority for an insurance company is to make a profit for share holders. To that end, they have to balance preminums collected with service provided - a system I pay for that doesn't always serve my best interests.

[traditional1]

"particularly when that structure dictates what doctors I may see, and I must get their permission for medication, diagnostic procedures and treatments."

When socialized medical care kicks in, you will long for the "good ol' days" of private care and plans, where the restrictions you mentioned are only PART of the rules and regulations the gubmint will impose.

Health Care Provider Lobbyists OWN the political parties, and to even think that somehow socialized medicine is anything other than a Health Care boondoggle by the Medical Giants is to ignore reality.

ANY business regulated or controlled by the Gubmint ALWAYS costs more....there's no free lunch

[IamConservative]

The fact that corporations want it is why politicians keep trying to jam it down our throats......

So, instead of having healthcare premiums deducted for a PPO where we have a choice in care providers, we will have a new tax deducted to ensure that we have no choice.

[NittanyLion]

If anyone wants to see the details of how the MA plan will work (there's still a lot of details to be determined), there's some info here.

[redgolum]

There is the third possibility, more expense rationed health care. Which is what we have now in a way.

[Snoopers-868th]

I've said all along, we'll get National Healthcare because the corporations want it.

IMO they both want it--to control the masses! Then they will move to limit what is covered based on lifestyles.

[17th Miss Regt]

This is an outstanding (final) solution to the problem of social security insolvency. Once all Americans are in nationalized healthcare, when someone gets too old and expensive to maintain in good health, ration away any healthcare so they die sooner. Voila! The social security program is no longer insolvent. Kind of a Dutch way to approach healthcare...

[TexasKamaAina]

To redistribute wealth, via me paying someone elses' healthcare costs, while diluting the quality of my own SELF-PAID medical care, is where it's going.

When the uninsured in your area seek medical care at the local ER, who do you think pays now?

That's the problem, all right. Until we start sending people away from the ERs and letting them die in the street we need to admit that we have a universal health care plan right now. Sooner or later everyone gets medical care. Those of us with medical insurance get it in a timely and regular fashion. Those without sometimes get too little too late - or worse , from a public cost standpoint, too much too late.

Another factor to consider is how much the current system, which relies on employee-sponsored plans, inhibits risk-taking and creativity. Who knows how many people there are who stick with a job primarily for the health insurance when, in fact, they would prefer to pursue an alternative career?

All that being said, however, the thought of a government administered universal health care program scares me, for all the reasons that others have given.

[Nowhere Man]

Well, I'm generally in favor for some universal system although maybe we can try it and have one with the choice where if one wants to get a private plan, one can do so, much like Israel does it. The crux of the problem is that it is broken, something needs to be done to fix it. I do foresee some sort of government based system for healthcare certainly by 2015 or 2020 but as you said a while ago, it could come sooner than that. Maybe it is the wave of the future.

[MSF BU]

"He died of heart attack a month after problems began"

He would have waited much longer to see a primary care physician and even longer for a referral to a specialists...assuming a specialist is available. There's little incentive to become an MD in Canada when they're paid little more than an upper escheleon postal bureaucrat. If anybody is in that situation let them go to an emergency room and use it in place of primary care, just as so many Brazilians do here in New England.