Mrs RyanVollmar, a BCBS spokeswoman (highly paid we can rest assured by her boss Mr Killingsworth, CEO of MA BCBS) would have us believe that the Chap 58 boondoggle for the private insurers is the only way to expand coverage. Public funds spent on the purchase of private insurance…this absurdly wasteful financing mechanism is indeed a cruel hoax for BCBS and their industry cohorts to thrust upon us and upon our elected officials as we struggle to balance the budget while facing a >$1.2Bil budget deficit.

As it was unclear to the BCBS spokesperson where Get Real’s numbers are from, the sources are as follows: United States Census Bureau data on number of uninsured in Massachusetts tallied at 748,000 as recently reported in the Boston Globe on Feb, 3, 2009, page A15.

Numerous reports in the Globe and elsewhere tout the number of newly insured in MA since the punitive mandate law began as being “over 300,000″.

748k less 300k = 448,000

So, after spending hundreds of millions in new state dollars under this fake reform 448,000 MA state residents remain uninsured (MA had the distinction of already spending 30% MORE than ANY OTHER state in the entire country on health care before this Chapter boondoggle began).

MIT economist Jon Gruber has estimated in a very public fashion that 20% of the uninsured would be generously granted official state permission to remain uninsured, so out of 748k that leaves 142,000 who will likely remain uninsured but who will not be punished with fines under the individual mandate.

448k less 142k = 306,000

Is it clear now? 306,000 is the “hundreds of thousands of Bay State residents who will soon be” fined for not having purchased health insurance”.

BCBS spokesperson, do post another comment if you or your colleagues at Blue Cross Blue Shield or at the MA Association of Health Plans are still “unclear where Get Real is getting his/her numbers”.

Can you please tell us why the minutes from the Connector board meeting of Feb. 14, 2008 have not yet been published on the web?

Also, can you please explain why many previously web published (HTML) Connector documents are no longer available and take the viewer directly to the Connector “sign me up” page?

It’s unclear where Get Real is getting his/her numbers. With respect to the implementation of Chapter 58, the figure “hundreds of thousands” would best describe the number of previously uninsured Bay State residents who can now access routine health care.

There are many valid criticisms to make of Chapter 58. However, what cannot be denied is that Massachusetts is better off for it than not because the law has dramatically expanded access to health care for every Massachusetts resident. Think of where we’d be without the implementation of Chapter 58: We would not be arguing about the fairness or not of the individual mandate. Lawmakers and policy analysts would be scrambling to fill the gaping hole left by the loss of hundreds of millions of federal Medicaid dollars.

Susan Ryan-Vollmar
Director of Communications, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation

What a cruel and unusual experiment this law has turned out to be. A hoax perpetrated on the taxpayers who pay through the nose to fund the wasteful, fragmented, and red-tape laden private insurance sector. An extremely cruel hoax for the hundreds of thousands of Bay State residents who will soon be punished through their state tax returns – with fines of up to $912.00 a year – just for being uninsured because they cannot afford to purchase expensive private insurance that is now required by the so-called “reform” law.

Mrs Turnbulls entry lays it out so clearly:

“For insurers, there have been hundreds of thousands of new members…also in the private market because of the individual mandate.
These membership gains come during a period of robust overall profitability for many providers and health plans.
For example, in 2006, the health plans based in Massachusetts had profits of more than $400 million and their combined net worth/reserves as of year-end 2006 exceeded $2.6 billion.”

A reminder to readers that this “robust overall profitability” is reaped at our expense in more ways than one. These high profits are, in part, made possible through the insurance companies, HMOs and hospital chains enjoying legal status as not-for-profit “charitable institutions”. Seriously. They are heavily taxpayer subsidized due to being not-for-profit corporations (with the rare exception in the MA health care industry).

The legal obligations of these corporations are overseen, or not, primarily by Secretary of State William Galvin, Attorney General Martha Coakley (how’s the AG investigation of BCBS CEO Van Faasen’s payout of $19.4Mil coming along?), and our Together We Can Governor Deval Patrick.

Who oversees the legal and moral obligations to us state taxpayers and to the uninsured who need health care but instead will be getting punished with steep fines?

Is the public backlash beginning now? Telephone Governor Patrick’s office to leave your message at 617-725-4005.