Last Thursday was a very good day for health care reform. The Connector Authority Board met and in an unusually (for Massachusetts) amicable session, resolved three tough issues that have threatened to derail the train moving toward implementation of Ch. 58. The Board voted to loosen the purse strings a bit to help out the people at the lower end of the income scale. They agreed on an affordability schedule that will exempt from the individual mandate, people whose premiums would probably be too high for them to handle, and they agreed to be flexible in granting individual cases of hardship. The advocates congratulated the board members for listening and responding. The board members praised the staff for their prodigious and successful work. The Chair thanked the board members for their perseverance and patience in achieving a compromise that everyone could accept. It was a rare Massachusetts moment and 99% of the uninsured should be able to get insurance as a result.
It is obvious that implementation is still a major challenge, but an even bigger challenge still remains, more talked about than acted on. The one percent who are relieved of the immediate requirement to buy insurance, and the businesses that have been given some time to comply with the new minimum coverage standards will continue to be plagued by the high cost of health care in the Commonwealth.
Getting almost everybody covered by insurance is a giant step forward and all the participants certainly deserve a moment to feel good about what has been achieved. But, if we are going to sustain those achievements over time, and bring the rest of the population into the insurance programs, health care costs and how to control their growth has to remain on the agenda. And it will take the combined efforts of purchasers, providers, payers, and patients to address the issues. Stay tuned for more on the subject in my next blog.
Dolores L. Mitchell, Executive Director of the Group Insurance Commission of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the agency that provides life, health, disability and dental and vision services to 265,000 State employees, retirees and their dependents.
“The one percent who are relieved of the immediate requirement to buy insurance, and the businesses that have been given some time to comply with the new minimum coverage standards will continue to be plagued by the high cost of health care in the Commonwealth.”
Sure. And don’t you think that the ninety-nine percent who are not relieved of the immediate requirement to buy insurance will i>also continue to be plagued by the high cost of health care in the Commonwealth? Since we will actually be paying for it. Although admittedly now things will be a little bit better, as we will have access to group-level rates instead of the previously extortiate non-group rates.
Even we uninsured pay for health care–and not figuratively.
We pay in cash upon delivery, settle our bills immediately so that nothing is outstanding. (We do it for real issues; we don’t waste money on frivolous pseudo-medical practice and invented diseases.) We also pay a lot of taxes (all of them, in full).
If you want hand over all of your money to middlemen–who profit over and above the squander and marketeering of big-business healthcare–then that’s all the less in your reserves when inflation worsens over the next decade and beyond.
(You could try asking for it back someday when unemployemnt rates reach mid-2 figures, so you can pay for what’s left of food, clothing, school, roof, fuel, etc., as inflation causes the dirt in your yard to be monetized. The companies probably won’t share it back with you. You shovelled everything you have to them, in the specious name of “Health Care.”)
Also note: prices will rise yearly, in the double digits. Your state’s population has been identified as “consumers.” Pharma and device companies don’t make and market medical products out of charity.
And the private equity investors want returns on all those startup buildings and employees.
“$” signs.
When will supposedly well intentioned people stop deluding themselves along with the rest of the population about this reform plan? Can it be that others do not see it?
The Emperor has no clothes!!
In this case the Emperor is the health insurance industry joined by wealthy hospital chains. They largely control the politicians who do their bidding — at the expense of ordinary people’s economic and health needs.
The heart of the matter is as follows, as said quite well by Ms. Mitchell, with 2 small words added by me in brackets.
“[WE ALL] will continue to be plagued by the high cost of health care in the Commonwealth.”
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My goal in speaking out is to raise people’s consciousness about what should be considered as possible in the realm of health system reform. We can do so much better than this Chapter 58 law if we truly put people’s needs before corporate profits in health care.
Understanding these issues is needed to help get us, as a state, on a more effective track toward quality affordable and sustainable health care for all.
Many other health professionals together with our patients and their families share this perspective. Governor Patrick, are you listening? Do you care? What will you do to help us?
Why is it that when groups of well meaning people make an honest mistake they refuse to admit it? This is the case with the New MA Health Care Reform Law. The state of MA recently abandoned their commitment to Universal Health Care and now “according to the state’s own figures, many consumers over 55 and families with children cannot afford the lowest-priced existing health plan, even before taking out of pocket costs into consideration,” said Carmen Balber, of the the nonprofit, nonpartisan Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR). Unfortunately thepolicycenter.org must announce that the new MA Health Care Reform Law is not a model of successful health care financing reform and should not be duplicated in other states. Unless of course the state is seeking health care premiums that are unaffordable, a health care delivery system where access is reduced and a failed financing reform program. Better luck next time Commonwealth of MA.
Not only does the ‘emperor have not even a stitch of skivvies on his bare rump, even our corporate-controlled/friendly ‘mainstream’ media seems to be willing to toss a few rocks at Chapter 58. But that’s to be seen as a good sign. Many of us haven’t for a minute let our intelligence be insulted by such disingenuous monikers as ‘universal’ or ‘health care for all’, because we know corporate powergrabs when we see them.
So let’s see more about the stratospheric salaries the Connector board members are knockin’ down. Seachange Bulletin had an article several months ago – after the one that outed the secret Connector meeting – that pegged one salary in the $171,000 per annum range. (Jon Kingsdale’s, I think, but don’t recall for sure) So add up just TWO of these folks, and our fair Commonwealth is shelling out $1000. a day to implement such draconian measures as the individual mandate. But therein lies the catch: if you’re doing the bidding of your greedy corporate sponsors and shoving a decidedly unsavory directive down the throats of your lemming populace, there’s no substitute for horsepower.
As a querulous aside, it is not known at the time of this posting whether our indefatigable former governor, in his improbable bid for the Oval office, will campaign in ‘our’ new little desert kingdom, Iraq, but if he does, we might see the same butt-ugly face of healthcare privatization taking place there as well.
But for now, I, for one, am jubilant to see the icing slide so precipitously off the piece of cake our for-profit healthcare corporatocracy so carefully carved out for themselves. But I blanch and grieve for its victims!!
And no, I don’t think Deval Patrick is listening……to us, that is.
But you can bet your rump corporate interests will have his ear!
Dave