Mass. plan no miracle
By Roger Bybee at Jul 06, 2009 |
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No miracle in Mass.
The highly-touted
The program was predicated on a strong individual mandate to purchase insurance, subsidies for the poor to cover them, and trivial fines for employers who refuse to supply health insurance.
But like other at least six other state-level "universal" plans that soon collapsed the
As a result, the
"Prevention, disease management, computers, and a health insurance exchange were supposed to make reform affordable."
"Instead, costs have skyrocketed, rising 23% between 2005 and 2007, and the insurance exchange adds 4% for its own administrative costs on top of the already high overhead charged by private insurers. As a result, one in five



By Green, Chris at Jul 07, 2009 00:47 AM
I worry that the inevitable failure of the Massachusetts plan on a national scale will discredit all efforts to get the free market out of health care. Right wingers will make propaganda against it, attempting to conflate it with single payer in the public's mind. That's why some Republicans keep calling Obama's proposals "socialized medicine," which is ridiculous of course.
Obama seems to be backing away from the "public option" proposal. The fact that he wants to fund the public plan with taxes on the benefits of middle class people seems to gaurantee even more so that the program would be a failure in the long run. Regressive taxation is a bad sign for social programs.
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Re:
By Bybee, Roger at Jan 22, 2010 10:30 AM
Dear Chris: Just saw your comment now!
You make several excellent points:
1) Regressive funding allows Right to gnerate resentment among whites against the poor and people of color
2) The notion of taxing benefits shows that the White House has swallowed rightist ideas about high premiums being the result of "over-use" rather than dangerous work, large numbers of women in workforce (reproductive health irequires regular visist), or living in a high-cost area ( eg., SE Wisconsin where I live is 30% above the national average.
3) IF OBamad had permitted an open public option, one private firm estimated that nearly 130 million would sign up. Obvious, the loss of so many customers was impermissuble to insurers.
Please stay in touch! Sorry for long delay! Best, Roger
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