Health Care BS

Comments 6

1. Marc Brown wrote:

   David, you being very unfair here as Ezra Klein clearly says in the article:

   ‘But it’s failing at what it never tried to do — substantially cut costs. With health costs rising at their traditional velocity, the Massachusetts plan is currently an unsustainable success.’

   As for coverage, it is indisputable that it in a short space of time it has cut the insured by more than half. Sirely even you don;t think it should have eliminated all the uninsured from day 1 - why that really would have been a universal system like the NHS.

   ‘Much of what we do know comes from an Urban Institute survey that studied working-age adults in the fall of 2006, which was before the plan’s implementation, and then surveyed them again in the fall of 2007, a year after the plan came into effect. Over that time period, the uninsured rate for working-age adults dropped by about half, to 7.1 percent. The uninsurance rate for adults with incomes below 300 percent of the poverty line dropped by 11 percent. And this study tracked the period before the individual mandate really went into effect, at which point the program saw its largest surge in enrollment. The best estimates now suggest the uninsured rate is somewhere between 5 percent and 7 percent.’

   Posted 04 Jul 2008 at 10:09 am ¶
2. HealthReformWatcher wrote:

   Maybe I’m foolish to dialogue with someone who disagrees so profoundly with my world view, but here goes –

   1. The goal was never honestly universal coverage, but dramatic reductions in the number of uninsured. As of Oct. 2007, according to the study cited by Klein, adult uninsurance had been cut by roughly half. For low income people, those eligible for subsidies enrolled, but there was also substantial growth in low-income enrollees in employer-based coverage. For higher income adults, the uninsurance rate went from 5% to 3%.

   That was as of October, before the big push to get people enrolled before the Dec. 31 individual mandate deadline. Enrollment soared further in November and December, after the study was done.

   And the first year mandate was intended to be a phase-in year, with modest penalties. The bigger stick comes in 2008.

   So it’s way to early to brand the program a failure. But the preliminary evidence shows the program (mandates for individuals, subsidies for low-income, and a better insurance market) is successful.

   Every other state is getting worse; MA is getting better. Where’s the failure?

   Posted 04 Jul 2008 at 12:07 pm ¶
3. Matt Horn wrote:

   “Where is the failure”

   Two words

   impending insolvency

   Posted 07 Jul 2008 at 9:08 am ¶
4. wd wrote:

   Klein is being disingenuous. He neglects to mention what was promised about cost, namely that the plan would not cost more than what the state already spent on health insurance. Romney clearly stated that the $1 billion in the “uninsured care fund” would be more than enough.

   Of course, it comes as little surprise that claim didn’t hold up, as any honest observer of government finances could have told you. Nor is it any surprise that Klein ignores it.

   Posted 08 Jul 2008 at 4:08 pm ¶
5. HealthReformWatcher wrote:

   If your standard is Romney’s claim than no new revenue would be required, than I suppose the plan’s financing didn’t work out.

   But not a soul in state believed Romney. The legislature assumed growing costs, and they believed it was worth it. Klein ignores it because everyone ignored it.

   The plan faces impending insolvency only if the state refuses to find the funds required to pay the bills. So far, state leaders remain committed to the program: subsides for low income people who can’t get Medicaid, a better individual market, the mandate to buy coverage if it’s affordable, and employer requirements to at least allow pre-tax payroll deductions.

   Anything can happen, but it’s way too early to pronounce it dead.

   Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 5:55 pm ¶
6. Matt Horn wrote:

   That is the same short sightedness that has given us the funding problems with Medicare, SSN, etc. Funds are not generated by the government, they are taken from the people of the US. I don’t know a whole lot of people that have any extra to give to the government, and the government is notoriously inept at properly and efficiently running any program. That goes from everything from the TSA to the Big Dig. Federal and State. I am not pronouncing it dead, just terminally malignant.

   Posted 14 Jul 2008 at 8:41 am ¶

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