Massachusetts doctors say single-payer or bust

[girl gone mad]

Massachusetts doctors say single-payer or bust

By Sarah Arnquist, http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2009/02/mass-doctors-say-singlepayer-or-bust-noon-embargo.html">The Health Care Blog

Massachusetts members of the Physicians for a National Health Program released a report today faulting the state's experiment with health reform for failing to achieve universal coverage, being too expensive and draining funds away from safety-net providers.

The doctors' punch line is that the reform has given private insurance companies more business and power without eliminating vast administrative waste. In fact, it says, the "Connector" in charge of administering the reform adds about 5 percent more in administrative expenses.

In summary, nothing less than single-payer national health reform will work, according to authors Drs. Rachel Nardin, David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, all professors at Harvard Medical School.


The report criticizes the Urban Institute's largely favorable report that found only 2.6 percent of Massachusetts' residents were uninsured in mid-2008 because it failed to sufficiently reach non-English speakers in its survey.

Reports in Health Affairs this winter also found significant positive support for the reform among employers and the public. There was little evidence of crowd-out.

The PNHP doctors' report says health plans people are forced to buy are not affordable and often skimp, making the mandate that individuals buy them regressive. And moreover, it says, peoples' experiences have shown that insurance does not guarantee access to care. The Boston Globe chronicled the long wait for primary care last September.

A final criticism the 19-page report offers is that the reform is financially unsustainable, as it does "nothing about a major driver of high health care costs, the overuse of high-technology care such as CT scanners and surgeries, and the underdevelopment of primary care."

[wroberts189]

1. It was just a big money making scam for the INS. companies

Courtesy of Mitt "millions" Romney .... make it illegal for anyone not to have insurance ..idea was promoted as if everybody was forced by law to have it then rates would lower for all.


Instead the insurance companies just raised rates ..since you now HAD to buy it or face penalties.

It was so easily predicted ... they knew it was a scam.

At least now mandatory insurance laws have been discredited.

[Matariki]

3. Gee, and no one could have seen that coming...

Mandatory insurance - something people are FORCED to purchase - and, for some mysterious reason, the insurance companies are 'motivated' to LOWER rates? :rofl:

[wroberts189]

15. You and me and a lot of others here did.

There is some weird belief out there that corporations can do no wrong and will always do the right thing.


When their very existence is based on profit and nothing more.

[eridani]

10. Only among sick people

The healthy majority in MA, who know exactly jackshit about what actual care their plans entitle them to, are perfectly happy with it.

[wroberts189]

16. Yes..When I was 25 I was the same way. no ins? no problem I am healthy. nt

[demodonkey]

2. We have to take the profit out of people's illness and suffering. SINGLE PAYER is the only way.

"Insurance" means more money-grabbing, greed, and denied claims.

Single payer healthcare for all. We can't afford NOT to do this.

[AdHocSolver]

4. For-profit insurance companies invest in drug companies and medical equipment companies.

For-profit insurance companies will willingly pay for the most expensive treatments since what they pay out increases the value of their stock shares in those companies.

There is NO incentive for for-profit insurance companies to contain costs. The for-profit insurance companies would lose money on their stock portfolios.

[area51]

5. k&r on this life-and-death issue.

The insurance industry trolls certainly were busy in the comments section on that website; interesting that single-payer police and fire protection isn't considered communist, but healthcare somehow is? :eyes:

[slipslidingaway]

6. K&R n/t

[babylonsister]

7. Good news for everyone working on the health issue-what 'not' to do.

I hope they're listening.

[wroberts189]

17. Yes ...lets hope and if not lets scream bloody murder. nt

[Faryn Balyncd]

8. Any mandatory insurance plan will financially STRENGTHEN insurance companies & DOOM Single Payer....

We need to fight for Single Payer NOW.

The idea that gradual enlargement of insurance through mandatory insurance & supplement, with the eventual evolution into Single Payer is flawed. Such a plan would only enrich the insurance companies and bankrupt the treasury. The enriched insurance companies would then be even more difficult to defeat.

We can only afford universal coverage if we tao the 31% cut ("administrative costs") that the insurance companies now take. (This is more than 3 times the administrative costs in other nations.)

The insurance companies rape the healthy and refuse to cover the rest.

We need to listen to Dr. Himmelstein, and support Single Payer and OPPOSE any mandatory insurance scheme.

[wroberts189]

19. Yep single payer THE ONLY WAY. nt

[Kat45]

9. I'm in Mass. and this is my experience since losing my job and insurance

Right now, I'm in my first month with no insurance coverage. I've been spending quite a bit of time on the state health connector web site trying to figure things out. I am not eligible for Mass Health (Medicaid) because you pretty much have to have kids to get that.

There is a second option of subsidized insurance for low income people. I should be eligible for that, so I sent in an application. I called last week to follow up on my application and I was told that it takes 45 to 90 days to process an application! WTF??!! If it takes the maximum amount of time, which wouldn't surprise me, I would be 3 more months without health insurance. I believe that after 3 months without insurance, the fines kick in for not having insurance. Nice, huh?

Then I decided I really can't be without insurance any longer--I'm already pretty nervous not having it--so I used some savings to get the insurance you can purchase through the state program. It is private insurance that meets the state's basic requirements, whatever they are. So I have to shell out around $300 for a month's insurance and hope that they process my application sooner rather than later.

[eridani]

11. Mandatory insurancde is worse than no insurance at all

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/september/health_reform_failur.php


Why has progress been so meager? Because most of the promised new coverage is of the “buy it yourself” variety, with scant help offered to the struggling middle class. According to the Census Bureau, only 28 percent of Massachusetts uninsured have incomes low enough to qualify for free coverage. Thirty-four percent more can get partial subsidies - but the premiums and co-payments remain a barrier for many in this near-poor group.

And 244,000 of Massachusetts uninsured get zero assistance - just a stiff fine if they don’t buy coverage. A couple in their late 50s faces a minimum premium of $8,638 annually, for a policy with no drug coverage at all and a $2,000 deductible per person before insurance even kicks in. Such skimpy yet costly coverage is, in many cases, worse than no coverage at all. Illness will still bring crippling medical bills - but the $8,638 annual premium will empty their bank accounts even before the bills start arriving. Little wonder that barely 2 percent of those required to buy such coverage have thus far signed up.

While the middle class sinks, the health reform law has buoyed our state’s wealthiest health institutions. Hospitals like Massachusetts General are reporting record profits and enjoying rate increases tucked into the reform package. Blue Cross and other insurers that lobbied hard for the law stand to gain billions from the reform, which shrinks their contribution to the state’s free care pool and will force hundreds of thousands to purchase their defective products. Meanwhile, new rules for the free care pool will drastically cut funding for the hundreds of thousands who remain uninsured, and for the safety-net hospitals and clinics that care for them. (Disclosure - we’ve practiced for the past 25 years at a public hospital that is currently undergoing massive budget cuts.)

[Bread and Circus]

12. I fear that Obama won't recognize this openly but believes it privately, for political

reasons... and that we'll get a piecemeal system that is even more costly than what we have now.

[and-justice-for-all]

13. If its bad for Insurance companies, its good for us...nt

[wroberts189]

18. The Mass. plan was very good for INS corps. Record profits. nt

[Judi Lynn]

14. Thank you! K & R.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[Faryn Balyncd]

20. Mandatory Insurance would be a REPEAT of the PxDrug fiasco (higher drug prices, corporate welfare...

......paid for by looting the taxpayers, and very little, if any benefit to the health care patient.)

Would patients have been better off if we had just enacted RE-IMPORTATION OF CANADIAN DRUGS (like Bush promised in the 2000 campaign, and promised to "look at" again in the 2004 campaign, and then promptly killed it both times, claiming that "patient safety" was the issue), and never passing the industry give-away that was billed the "Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit"????????

Re-importation of Canadian drugs would have cost the U. S. taxpayer, and Treasury nothing, and would have benefited not only Medicare patients but ALL patients. Instead, we got a prescription drug program that allowed the drug companies to go on a pricing-jacking spree, which raised the prices for everyone, & was one of the most egregious examples of corporate welfare in US history.

But a piecemeal health-care reform would have at its heart Mandatory Insurance, which would make the corporate welfare to the drug companies look like small potatoes.



Can we learn from the mistakes made in the prescription drug debacle?




Perhaps we should not only re-import drugs from Canada, but some of the Canadian judgement that went into forming a banking system, and a healthcare system.




:kick: