Another news report indicates that the much-touted Massachusetts “universal” health care plan isn’t so universal.
The state has already backed off of “universal.” About 160,000 uninsured people in the state have incomes that are too high to qualify for subsidized health insurance — but too low to afford the lowest-cost unsubsidized plans.
So, will the insurance police be coming for them? Well, perhaps not for all of them:
About 60,000 of these working poor won’t face a penalty for not getting insurance, but the 100,000 others are in a bind.
Indeed. And why are these 100,000 people “in a bind”? Because Mitt Romney and his accomplices in the state legislature decided to treat a symptom rather than the disease.
When are these boneheads ever going to learn?
Comments 6
‘Because Mitt Romney and his accomplices in the state legislature decided to treat a symptom rather than the disease.’
Reading the report you link to it seems to me the only logical conclusion is to go the whole single payer way, taxing everyone so that all put into the system. How you insure all people going in the other direction is a mystery.
Also, there’s a link to this item on a woman bankrupted by not a huge amount of money despite doing everything right. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20201807/
Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 3:39 am ¶Here, her health insurer - a very large one - behaved badly. In a world of less regulation, surely these stories will be even more commonplace. It’s bad enough trying to shop around for house and car insurance. All you do is conjure up a nightmare world of thousands of different health plans for often vulnerable people to navigate through.
How you insure all people going in the other direction is a mystery.
This misses the point of my “symptom” metaphor. American health care cannot be fixed by some scheme to “insure all people.”
The “uninsured” are symptomatic of a larger disease, and the continued focus on that issue takes the health care debate down a time-wasting and unproductive path.
If you read this, the point will be clearer.
Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 6:47 am ¶How would you treat the disease? Other than paying docs more?
Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 8:45 am ¶The article states “deregulating insurance markets — that could truly expand coverage”. Can someone tell me what specific regulations hamper insurance markets from proving more coverage?
Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 10:25 am ¶‘If you read this, the point will be clearer.’
It’s another false flag - droning on about wait times in the UK etc and ignoring the obvious fact that milllions of Americans live day to day with operable conditions but are among the have nots when it comes to access. Likewise, many millions live with unmanaged chronic and preventable conditions thanks to lack of primary care. Emergency room access is not a decent healthcare system, and in any case your system does not have the capacity to provide all elective surgery on demand.
And you failed to address the case study on the insured woman with ovarian cancer who was bankrupted, How in your reforms would this be prevented?
And you failed to address the pointy about a plethora of plans - why should vulnerable people have to cope with such life and death complexity?
Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 4:24 pm ¶Marc, you make an excellent point. Wait times in the U.S. are considerably shorter than those in other countries partly because 47 million of us can’t afford to see a doctor. When are our politicians going to get serious?
Posted 23 Sep 2007 at 5:57 pm ¶Post a Comment