Apparently, Massachusetts will require everyone to have health insurance. From what I heard on the news this morning, they’re going to offer insurance companies “incentives” to offer insurance to low-income families. According to the article, anyone who doesn’t have health insurance is going to face tax penalties.
I know that lack of health insurance is a big problem in this country, but I’m not sure I like the idea of a law that says “buy health insurance…or else.”
Can we just call it a socialized plan, yet?
I don’t want to get into a debate about socialized vs. non medical systems, but this is horrible. The system needs revamping, but not this way.
Ick. :pukey:
:crap:
:smack:
Oh, gee, this should work really well. (insert sarcasm smilie here) Lessee, it worked well with requiring car insurance to be mandatory…oh, wait that doesn’t work too well, as I was hit by an uninsured driver a few years ago. And, if it’s offered, but a consumer doesn’t buy it, they’ll be penalized (taxes)? Hmmm…so if a couple who have two children are both working, making minimum wage, and paying daycare, rent, buying food, trying to keep their POS junker car running (and buying the state minimimum required car insurance) so they can get back and forth to work, and living sometimes not from paycheck to paycheck, and can’t afford to buy new shoes for the kids, then they’ll be penalized for not buying health insurance through their employer? Holy, moly, what a concept. :smack:
Since this isn’t the Pit, I’ll stop there. But this is stupid, stupid, stupid. Don’t they think that if people could afford to buy health insurance, they would?
Seems like a windfall for the insurance companies to me.
I’ve wondered if my auto insurance wold cost less if it wasn’t required. 
A better approach may be to provide insurance for those who don’t have it rather than fine them. Fine companies that don’t provide insurance for their workers and pay part of the premiums out of that.
It’s actually difficult to figure out how much you need to make before you can no longer get subsidized insurance. I think the figure is high-ish. I was told by an activist pushing the legislation that it was in the $70,000 range, but I don’t know if that’s true anymore.
I’m feeling pretty conflicted about this. One the one hand, it’s great to get universal(ish) coverage, but the approach taken basically negates one of the great advantages of universal coverage – namely, administrative efficiency. With this law, we’ve just added new patches to what’s already an incredible (and incredibly costly) patchwork – new programs, new administrative overhead, changes to the tax code, etc. The administrative burden for hospitals, not to mention individuals, has been increased, even though hospitals benefit from not having to provide “free” care as much.
And phall0106, presumably the people you mention will be getting highly subsidized, if not free coverage. And while it may suck, it probably sucks less than getting forced into bankruptcy by medical bills.
Actually, one other thing I should mention. This is very much an “art of the possible” sort of deal. The activists weren’t wild about it, but their line of thinking goes like this: once we establish universal care as the basic proposition, and introduce the notion that businesses will need to assume at least some responsibility for healthcare, then it becomes easier to talk later about a more rationalized and more efficient system.
A few years ago, I was working for a small nonprofit organization. I was making less than $32,000 a year, and although I had three children, I did not qualify for subsidized health coverage. (The kids did qualify for subsidized health coverage through a state program–which had a monthly co-payment of $49 per child.) I was barely making ends meet, and could not afford the extra $147 a month on top of child care (thank goodness it was only afterschool care at that point) and all the other expenses related to keeping a family clothed, housed and fed. And, yes, my employer did offer health insurance (for me and my family), but it was almost $300 a month in payments.
Just because subsidized health care is available doesn’t mean that a family can afford it.
It’s a valid point, though I do think they upped the subsidies to help in situations like yours. But your general point is correct – this is an ass-backwards way of going about things. The best that can be said is that it’s better than nothing. And I hope Massachusetts will inspire other states to do something saner.
Or death by a thousand cuts.
How do you mean?
If society thinks universal health care is a good idea (meaning there’s been a democratic vote on the issue, rather than a bunch of chickenshit lawmakers passing a law which panders to both the insurance industry lobby and a handful of uninsured constituents), then the just thing to do is levy a tax and have the government provide a universal level of health insurance (or health care) for everyone in their state. Passing legislation which foists responsibilities of the state off on “business,” is reprehensible. And what I mean by a “thousand cuts,” is the incremental manner in which these guys are apparently trying to force their will. We can get this much today; tomorrow we’ll “refine” it; next week we’ll require some additional benefits; come 2009, we’ll mandate dental, and a drug plan, and life insurance, etc. This, I predict now, will all be done under the guise of making “a more rationalized and more efficient system.” Continually adding functions and responsibilities which are rightly the duty of the state to “business” is inevitably gonna kill some of them. And the more revisions the plan gets, the more businesses will fall away under the burden.
Well, if you’re going to have a universal care system, someone has to pay for it, and whether it’s individuals or businesses is really the same to me. Of course, if individuals are to pay, then they’ll need higher wages, so it comes to the same for business. Here’s what I think is the best solution, just because it takes advantage of many features of the existing system: let everyone in the state of Massachusetts choose an HMO, and fund the whole thing out of payroll taxes. Have a sliding scale such that small businesses only pay a portion of the levy. If you’re a one-man band, you’d pay 10% of the levy, let’s say. Call it $500 annually.
The fact is, most bigger business are already paying for healthcare for their employees. By letting them pay a simple tax per employee to the state, they would get entirely out of the business of administering health plans and negotiating with the HMOs, not to mention their unions. That represents big savings for business. And the administrative efficiency of having a single payer (the state), would probably mean you could insure everybody in the state without adding a single dollar beyond what we’re already paying. The HMOs would act as intermediaries, enrolling individuals, negotiating rates with hospitals, and paying claims – in other words, doing what they do now, only with vastly greater efficiency, because they wouldn’t have to negotiate separate deals with thousands of different parties.
And with vastly increased efficiency on the payor side, you could then devote some attention to finding efficiencies in coding, billing, information technology, medical practice, etc.
So that’s my plan. And I consider it a pro-business plan, because business would save money overall, and have a (slightly) more motivated workforce. Plus you’d see more innovation and entrepreneurship. There are probably lots of people who’d strike out on their own, but who are afraid of the costs of providing their own coverage, particularly if they have families.
Which leaves larger businesses stuck subsidizing everyone else. And still does nothing to prevent lawmakers from their constant meddling.
Sure, but if they can subsidize everyone else, and save money over what they’re currently spending, why wouldn’t they go for it?
And as for the Massachusetts lawmakers and their meddling… but you don’t even live in Massachusetts, do you?
What about co-pays, limits on benefits, deductibles and prescriptions?
Presently my employer offers a great health plan. It doesn’t cost all that much (the company pays a lot towards the insurance) and has low co-pays and deductibles, high limits and cheap perscriptions. Do all the copays go away? What about limits and perscriptions? Do deductibles go away?
I highly doubt that a government plan would cost the same as or less than what I have now and offer the same quality coverage. I know that many people are in the same place that I am. (The last two companies I worked for had great insurance plans, one of those business employed thousands of people)
Also, how do you stop government program bloat? Government programs tend to expand over time and get big and inefficient.
Slee
That’s everywhere.
There is a proposed Constitutional amendment to set a minimum wage in AR; the legislature has a bill going to set it lower so they can kill the amendment.
They are also voting to lower the 3.3% (!) teacher raise.
I asked my boss about this story. He says that he pays $500 per employee per month for health care (It’s a standard Blue Cross plan, with a $500 deductable.) If I remember the news story correctly, businesses in Massachusetts can pay the state $275 per employee per month to not provide health care. According to my boss, $275 can buy a rock-bottom health plan, the kind with a very high deductable and no choice in which doctor you see. Do you see where I’m going here? Nearly every business in Massachusetts is going to cancel its health care, because it’s much cheaper to just pay the state. The burden is going to get shifted to the employees, and the quality of health care is going to suffer, because no matter how efficient the system might be (and we all know the joke about “government efficiency” being an oxymoron), $275 doesn’t buy as much health care as $500 does. TANSTAAFL.
Mind you, not every business can afford even the $275 payment. Lots of business are just going to close up.
“Poor people would be offered free or heavily subsidized coverage. Those who can afford to buy it but refuse to, would face tax penalties.”
So it may not be that bad. The only ones who will be penalized will be those who can afford it but don’t buy it. And if you can’t afford it you will get it free or or really cheap. Assuming Mass. doesn’t screw it up in the implementation phase and it works the way they say it will.
So all y’all lighten up a bit and wait and see how they handle it. According to the arcticle most of your complaints about it are not valid.
But who determines what the definition of poor is … before I got a job, all mrAru and I had was his navy retirement, and a $34k a year job. Our mortgage is just under $1k a month, then there is the car, taxes, insurance, housing insurance, electricity, fuel oil for heat and hot water … the only luxury we had was cable and internet access from charter communications. Most months we had nothing left at all in the bank, some months we had to pay partial bills [oil heat in the winter with the damn oil prices going crazy never helped matters, thank god we could heat much of the time with wood]
Most communities 34K doesnt qualify as poor … but sure as shit we certainly didnt have any money for anything extra. To put it in perspective, I didnt have any new clothing for 3 years, it took me 3 months to save up the $50US for a pair of work pants to give me an ‘interview’ outfit, which finally gave me more than 2 work outfits when I just got my job last month.