Mitt Romney and the exceedingly Democrat state Legislature in Massachusetts passed a universal health insurance coverage law before he left. It’s universal in that every business with more than 10 employees has to pay for insurance for employees, never mind whether they can afford or not, and every citizen has to have approved insurance, whether they can afford it or not.
Of course, if they can’t afford it, then that’s where the Massachusetts taxpayers step in. Oh, we were assured that no new taxes would have to be raised to keep the plan affordable— just like we were once assured that the Big Dig (the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project through the center of Boston) would only cost $5 billion and take 10 years to finish. It took 20 years and $15 billion and, by the way, leaks like a sieve and has already had one collapse that killed a driver.
So now, experts say the universal health care plan costs are skyrocketing and taxes will have to be raised in 2009 to cover it. Of course.
p>Why does anyone believe these politicians any more?
Or worse why doesn’t anybody believe history? How about the TennCare disaster, Tennessee’s failed attempt at “universal coverage.” Or the examples of Europe and Canada where rationing of health care results.
The idea that we will get it right this time seems to take on the model of Bullwinkle more than reason.
P.J. O’Rourke said it best “If you think health care is expensive now, just wait till you see what it costs when it’s free.”
Welcome to the club! Looks like the Left Coast isn’t the only place doing this.
The Ninth Circuit court just ruled in favor of a similar act that has taken effect in San Francisco. Since I work in the payroll/HR field, I have had to do a fair amount of research on this (and related) matters. What shocks me is the fact that the authors of these measures do not seem to have consulted any labor lawyers or accountants. The laws are distressingly vague on certain crucial points, leaving employers with the responsibility of complying with them, but an uncertainty about how to do so. They are also structured in ways that do not mesh well with any existing payroll or accounting systems, meaning that they require a lot of oversight and manual adjustments and programming to track.
Finally, the San Francisco ordinance (and others like it) have specific wording that makes it clear that they apply to all labor performed within the city limits, regardless of any other factors, including immigration status. This has two major consequences:
-First, it provides an opportunity for vulture labor lawyers to track the hours worked by undocumented day laborers and then hold their employers liable for fines and penalties when they do not provide things like health insurance payments and city-mandated paid sick days for these employees.
-More distressingly, it imposes these laws on employers who have no reasonable way to know about them. If you run a tech consulting business in Phoenix and send a technician to consult for a week with another business in San Francisco, you are legally liable for these health insurance payments to the city, and for the subsequent fines when you don’t comply.
I suspect you’d find similar preposterousness in the text of your Boston laws. These proponents of creeping socialism don’t think things through. Sometimes I feel like leaving San Francisco permanently, and at other times I wonder what this city would look like if everyone like me just up and left.
When we were residents up there, the state passed the law making it mandatory for all insurances to cover well visits, mammograms, certain medical procedures and lab costs etc. At the time we were buying our insurance ourselves because my husband’s employer didn’t have family coverage. Well, after that bill passed, our insurance rate got to be more than we could afford to pay. We were doing just fine paying (then) $35 a visit to the ped. for the well baby visits. What happened was we could no longer afford food & rent and also pay for health care coverage. Instead of being the help the legislature promised, it became a burden.
At least you can say they are consistant.
This is wrong. There is so much wrong with Massachusetts! If I were you, I’d move away from there. All of my family members who live there lost their faith. The Government is their god.
I do feel very sorry for working families who are forced to purchase for others what they can not even afford for themselves. It is a grave injustice and one that you should either protest and fight or leave to others willing to pay the price of socialism.
As soon as health care coverage becomes mandatory, the drug companies and the insurers become tyrants and raise prices. That has happened with the Medicare RX program. Drugs that cost ten dollars one year, go to $25 the next.
I think that tax credits to individuals to buy their own insurance, to encourage self insuragnce by large employers and get the feds and the HMOs out of it might be the answer. It would put the power in the patient’s hands..