Massachusetts is no model for national health care reform

[eridani]

For Immediate Release Contacts:
Feb. 20, 2009 Rachel Nardin, M.D.
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D.
Mark Almberg, [phone], mark {at} pnhp.org


Physicians, public interest group urge Sen. Kennedy to introduce single-payer legislation
WASHINGTON - The Massachusetts health care system, widely regarded as an example of how to provide universal coverage and keep costs low, is in fact faltering badly and should not be held up as a national model for reform, according to a study released this week by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and Public Citizen.

The study comes at a time when the health insurance industry is reportedly weighing in heavily in secret talks on Capitol Hill in favor of an individual mandate, a legal obligation requiring persons to have or to buy health insurance. The insurance industry's position was described in today's New York Times.

However, such mandates - which have been a cornerstone of the Massachusetts health reform - have failed to assure universal coverage, the new study says. For example, the state's most recent figures show that it had to exempt 79,000 residents from the mandate in 2007 because they could not afford to buy insurance.

The Massachusetts plan has also failed to make health care sufficiently affordable or to control costs, the report says.

The groups urged Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) to reject his home state's approach and, instead, introduce Senate legislation crafted after the House's United States National Health Care Act, H.R. 676, which would implement single-payer financing of health care while maintaining the private delivery system. The two groups also released a letter to Kennedy signed by approximately 500 Massachusetts physicians and health professionals urging the senator to embrace single-payer reform.

"Massachusetts physicians have the unique opportunity to observe the effects of this reform on patients every day," said Dr. Rachel Nardin, president of the Massachusetts chapter of PNHP and lead author of the study. "The nearly 500 doctors who have signed the open letter to Sen. Kennedy see that the reform is deeply flawed."

PNHP's study of the Massachusetts model found that the state's 2006 reforms, instead of reducing costs, have been more expensive than expected. The budget overruns have forced the state to siphon about $150 million from safety-net providers such as public hospitals and community clinics.

Many low-income residents, who used to receive completely free care, now face co-payments, premiums and deductibles under the new system - financial burdens that prevent many of them from receiving necessary medical treatment. Since the state's reforms passed, premiums under the state insurance program have increased 9.4 percent. The study found that if a middle-income person on the cheapest available state plan got sick, he or she could end up paying $9,872 in premiums, deductibles and co-insurance for the year.

Many residents remain uninsured or have inadequate insurance.

Under a single-payer system, doctors, hospitals and other health care providers are paid from a single fund administered by the government.

"We are facing a health-care crisis in this country because private insurers are driving up costs with unnecessary overhead, bloated executive salaries and an unquenchable quest for profits - all at the expense of American consumers," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group. "Massachusetts' failed attempt at reform is little more than a repeat of experiments that haven't worked in other states. To repeat that model on a national scale would be nothing short of Einstein's definition of insanity."

The study reported that a national nonprofit single-payer system could save Massachusetts about $8 billion to $10 billion a year in reduced administrative costs. Currently, Americans spend 31 cents of every health care dollar on administrative costs, by far the highest rate in the world and much higher than the 17 cents spent in Canada, which has single-payer universal health care.

"Big hospitals and insurers have gotten rich off reform, but a survey shows that more people directly affected by it have been harmed that helped," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a PNHP co-founder and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who helped prepare the study. "We're seeing patients who now can't afford vital medications and treatments that they've been on for years because of the new co-payments and deductibles imposed by the law."

Read the report, "Massachusetts' Plan: A Failed Model for Health Care Reform." http://pnhp.org/mass_report/mass_report_Final.pdf

Read the letter to Sen. Edward Kennedy. http://pnhp.org/mass_report/Letter_to_Kennedy.pdf

Read the labor letter to President Barack Obama. http://pnhp.org/mass_report/labor_letter_to_Obama.pdf

Read personal stories from Massachusetts patients. http://www.citizen.org/hrg/healthcare/articles.cfm?ID=18399


Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E Madison Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60602
Phone [phone] | Fax: [phone]
www.pnhp.org | info {at} pnhp.org

[Vinca]

1. I met a woman whose husband sells health insurance policies in MA.

They were fretting about paying their fine to the state because they can't afford to buy the insurance. Great fucking plan.

[pipi_k]

4. Yep, a big one-fingered salute to the imbecile who thought that one up

Penalize the people who can least afford to be penalized.


It's almost getting to the point where it doesn't even make sense to have a job anymore. Not if trying to do the right thing results in being treated like dirt and never being able to stay one step ahead of real poverty.

[Cleita]

8. It was written by the insurance industry.

If such a law is put up to Congress we really need to pressure our Reps and Senators to reject it in favor of HR. 676.

[Cleita]

9. Wrong post.

[jmowreader]

5. That couple needs to be on Page 1 of every newspaper in America

A man who sells health insurance has to pay the fine for not having it because he can't afford his own product? Ain't that a poke in the eye with a sharp stick?

[blondeatlast]

2. PNHP is a great organization--and they are ABSOLUTELY right about Mass. The beauty is

that the opposition can't use Massachusetts as an example because Romney created that mess.

[geckosfeet]

3. The insurance companies LOVE the system in MA. But - so many people

cannot afford insurance and remain uninsured. The fallback option of the state subsidizing their policies is costing the state dearly and exacerbating an already severe budget shortfall.

The whole idea was an ill conceived Romney pipe.

Yes - it would be great if everyone has health insurance. But someone making 30k a year in MA is not going to be able afford $5-6000 a year in health insurance premiums. Romney was so out of touch it was disastrous. The state is not suffering the results of his short tenure.

[area51]

6. Happy to be the 5th rec.

Insurance-at-gunpoint Romney got his idea from Newt Gingrich, who years ago talked about wanting to create a law forcing people to buy rightwing insurance. As many people have pointed out, forcing them to buy insurance (and tryng to police that) is a nightmare that doesn't guarantee healthcare. Apparently Gingrich, Romney et al haven't bothered to study that insurance fights a lot of claims and gets in the way of healthcare. Single-payer healthcare is the sane -- and cheaper -- alternative.

[janet118]

7. It is a total boondoggle

It hurts the working class, small businesses and the young worker with college or mortgage debts. The MassHealth option is only for the really poor who were covered anyway. The prices for low cost coverage for those in the lower middle class are just as prohibitive as they were before and if they purchase a cheaper health plan, they have to pay a fine anyway because it doesn't cover everything mandated by the state. And it still costs less than their "low-cost" plans. Nice, huh?

It is the typical crap that those trying to avoid single-payer universal healthcare come up with - an inefficient patchwork that kowtows to the insurance industry. The only benefit of the Mass. experiment is that it serves as an example of how stupid any such plan truly is.

[Cleita]

10. The only way to fight this is to insist that Medicare be part of the program.

We need to insist to our Reps. and Senators that the government make a Medicare program that is competitive with the insurers available to those who want to buy into it. Also, it should be available to people who can't afford medical insurance on a sliding scale fee depending on their ability to pay. If the only choice that people have is private health insurance, then we are doomed and not everyone will be covered.

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. K&R

[Faryn Balyncd]

12. Mandatory Insurance would repreat the mistakes of PxDrug Fiasco - Corporate Welfare, higher prices..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5103569

[Cleita]

14. Tell me about it. I've had to stop taking one of my drugs.

I couldn't afford it anymore. Some prescription drug benefit. I still pay more than half and that half has increased because the drug companies can charge anything they want to charge. I really hope Congress puts fixing this on their Calendar this year.

[Cleita]

13. Everyone needs to read this.

:kick:

[wroberts189]

15. A stupid plan and a scam ..and it was so obvious its makes one sick. nt

[wroberts189]

16. The stupidity here was absolutely astounding (or deliberate)

People cannot afford health insurance ...solution? Pass a law making them buy it anyway.


When will this insanity end?

Oh please God ..when can I return back to the Al Gore non-bizarro world parallel universe????

[Kansas Wyatt]

17. Medicare for all!

They already have the best damn system to provide universal health care for every American. It will be fairly inexpensive for the government to get it up and running for all, since everyone is already paying into the system, compared to starting a new program all together.

If the rich want their medical care better, then they can pay for private insurance accounts and the parasite insurance industry can sell it to them. Too bad it won't be as good or as profitable as sucking the life out of millions of Americans, but they are the ones who gorged themselves to death on the life-blood of Americans.

Anyone who opposes providing Medicare for all, is only interested in making an extraordinary amount of money off of the current or a reformed system.

[eridani]

18. I hope all of you are calling the White House comment line once a week on this

Also email, and using the health care blogs on the website.

[Mass]

19. Thanks for posting this\nt

[snot]

20. VERY impt. not just to healthcare but in terms of the economy:

efficiency is badly and urgently needed in this area, and despite what they say, there's a lot that gummint can do more efficiently.