Yippee oh yay, Massachusetts now has compulsory “universal” health insurance, i.e. socialized medicine. Under the new law hammered out by Democrats and the White House-seeking Republican governor (“See how bipartisan I am?”), everyone in Massachusetts is required to have health insurance ... or else.
Here’s the scheme:
- If you can afford private health insurance, you must buy it or suffer a penalty on your income taxes. (They get to define your ability to “afford”.)
- If you can’t afford it, then your employer must provide it if the company employs more than 10 people. If your employer refuses, he will be penalized up to $295 per employee per year. Let’s see, which is less expensive? $2,950 per year or health insurance for 10 people? Remind me again why the burden of health insurance falls on employers? After all, we don’t expect our employers to pay our auto insurance or home insurance or any other of life’s expenses. But because unions did a good job of tying medical benefits to employment decades ago, it is forever linked to your job.
- The “working poor” (again, defined by the government) will receive government-subsidized health insurance, i.e. taxpayer-funded. To provide this insurance, a new government bureaucracy called the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector has been setup, and we know that government agencies, especially those in Massachusetts, are paragons of efficiency and not just excuses to earmark money for cronies and provide jobs for hacks.
They didn’t attack the real problem
Technorati Tags: health insurance, Massachusetts, politics
$2,950 per year for 10 employees, unless there is a typo on one of your numbers.
You’re right, Joe. I’ll make the fix.
Hmmm, a health savings account. Where did that comes from? Oh yes, it was tacked onto that nasty prescription drug bill that was passed in 2004.
Um, yeah, sometimes politicians try to salvage a small victory from a principled defeat by tacking such items onto bad bills. Mitigation of the evil enacted.
Personally I would like to get insurance companies out of the health care business. But that’s probably because I can remember the days when health care insurance was brand new and too much bother to take seriously. It was easier to simply pay the doctor.
Our health care system is broken.
I know, I know, I love Bush (except for his stand on ‘immigration’) but this is a wonderful step forward and if used properly, it will enable our esteemed (federal) legislators to reform healthcare.
What am I saying?
I’m disgusted with them, given their thoughts and actions with the WOT, SS, immigration, etc. etc. etc.
In 2006, all of of our state legislators are up for re-election. How many of us are going to pull the lever for the incumbent? We get the legislators we deserve…
I think (hope?) the point of HSAs is to eventually reduce the need for ‘regular’ health insurance and just have catastrophic health insurance. Auto insurance only covers car accidents, not oil changes and tune-ups. It’s an insurance against an unplanned/unforeseen event not a payment plan for a routine occurrence.
NRO carried a piece on the Romney proposal in January, and the writer, a Heritage Foundation analyst, explained a dirty little secret about the hospital industry.
Hospitals complain about the cost of uncompensated care given through emergency rooms to the poor, so Massachusetts got Federal permission to spend Federal Medicaid money on funding that care.
The hospitals, of course, should be trying to sign up their poor emergency-room patients for Medicaid, so they’ll get care from doctors’ offices. But the uncompensated care pool paid more than Medicaid did, and hospitals had no incentive to wean their poor off the emergency room!
The Feds blew the whistle on that, and that scam is ending in June. That’s why the push for this bill came now.
Liam
Not yet but I’m going to look into it…
Actually, I’m approaching my sunset years so I, as a consumer, will be needing more tests, etc. If I were in my 20’s or 30’s (especially if I were self-employed!!!), I would definitely go with a HSA and catastrophic insurance plan.
This latest plan cooked up by the Massachusetts politicians reminds me of Dukasis and his universal health plan. It will be deja-vu all over again if Romney starts traveling around the country talking about the “Massachusetts Miracle”.
HSAs, as currently constructed, invite the approach of treating people like depreciating assets.
They do no such thing. What HSAs do is put the consumer in control instead of bureaucrats. I know because that’s what we use. It sets up a $3,000 deductible for my family. To compensate, we pay into a Personal Medical Fund with before-tax dollars. That money is mine. If we don’t spend it on health-care, then it rolls over. If we spend it all, then the deductible kicks in.
In addition, the procedures we pay for out of the PMF are often discounted. We also are given incentives for things like gym memberships and the like, so-called wellness or preventitive care.
And now I can go to the doctor of my choice, I can elect to get the procedures I think I need, and so on without having some HMO paper-pusher telling me otherwise.
Citizen, halt!!
Your health insurance papers, please………….
HSAs are savings accounts. They rollover from year-to-year (unlike those worthless mecical reimbursement accounts). They are encouraging people to save for something like routine health care. You are required to obtain a catastrophic health insurance policy before you can open a HSA because it is the catastrophic policy that you will need if you get truly sick. Paying $100 a month to a HMO when you only go to the doctor once or twice a year (with a 15 or 20 co-pay) seems silly.