Yesterday marked yet another step along the path toward our goal of eliminating the number of uninsured residents in Massachusetts. As I stood on the third base dugout at Fenway Park with Governor Patrick and Senate President Murray, community and religious leaders, Red Sox representatives, insurers and providers, we all marveled at the dramatic setting.
But, we also were sobered by the crucial task that we were all there to promote—informing and educating the public, not only about the new requirement to obtain health insurance, effective July 1, but also about new resources that will help them identify and purchase the health plan that is best for them and their health circumstances.
The event was marked by the presence of private and public resources that will be leveraged to make sure that all of our residents have access to the security of a medical home—regular sources of care, including preventive care, that will help keep them well and offer them treatment before they become critically ill.
Marketing and outreach is now the cornerstone of getting the message out to the public and making this law a success. It represents a significant investment of health reform funding, but the return on that investment is clear.
So many eyes are on the early innings of the new Health Insurance Connector’s role in administering the Commonwealth Care program, distributing Commonwealth Choice and Young Adult insurance products, and assisting small employers and individuals to access products, many with pre-tax dollars. But we must be mindful that the Connector isn’t the only game in town with important new responsibilities under the new health reform law. Many other state agencies have important roles as well.
The Division of Health Care Finance and Policy and the Division of Unemployment Assistance have been hard at work drafting and revising regulations that affect new employer responsibilities, including the Fair Share Contribution. Meanwhile, the Division of Insurance approves the new products that will be purchased through the Connector and works to staff a newly-created Bureau of Health Care Access there. The Department of Revenue has been in the mix too, preparing for the individual responsibility provisions of the new law. A health care quality and cost council will work to establish quality benchmarks and contain health care costs. And another council will tackle the important goal of eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in providing health care for our residents.
We in the Legislature are carefully watching, and participating, in the important work going on in those agencies and elsewhere to ensure that this law continues to be a success. This is an exciting and historic time for us here in Massachusetts, and we all have to step up to the plate to make this work.
Salvatore F. DiMasi, D-North End, is Speaker of the House of Representatives
Sal, you and your colleagues are a department of business now. Not a legislature.
How does one with insurance find out if the plan they already have meets the standards of the act?
Sounds simple? Yet to this date I have no idea even who to ask.
Speaker DiMasi and his colleagues are gutless! What we need is a basic level of health care which is taxpayer funded. After that your’re on your own. That mean that pre and post natal coverage would be extra and if you have a bunch of kids you pay more in taxes.
It’s more fitting to say “Keeping our eye on our wallets — and on the state budget”
How sad if Mr. DiMasi and other legislators truly believe that this law is the best that we, that they, can do for now. Special interests must not trump the health and economic needs and interests of regular people.
We must encourage — demand, in fact — that legislators and our Governor do more to meaningfully address the healthcare mess. People’s lives and livelihoods depend on it, as does the entire state’s economic health.
There are so many reasons to be alarmed about the way this reform plan is unfolding, including how it worsens instead of relieves the already crushing financial burden of healthcare spending on taxpayers and family members across Massachusetts. Why are there no standards or rules for insurers and other wealthy “stakeholders” as to how they spend our hard-earned hc dollars. Setting reasonable limits on administration and advertising/marketing seems like a wise thing to do.
Why was this not done in the new law?
The high cost/ unaffordability of quality insurance issue has a direct negative impact on access to timely needed care, as the recent Access Project report confirms. It is entitled “The Illusion of Coverage: How Health Insurance Fails People When They Get Sick.” Among its findings: Underinsurance (into which they include insurances with $2000 in deductibles) results in poor access to care sometimes resulting in increased cost from lack of preventive care, increase in personal debt and bankruptcy, change in employment, access to credit, and psychological consequences. For more information, see http://www.accessproject.org.
Many front-line health care professionals (myself among them) have been educating ourselves, our colleagues, and our communities about these concerns and the need to re-chart the course of this largely faux reform.
Anyone – clinician, patient, plumber, teacher – everyone who cares about attaining quality affordable healthcare for all can help get the state on a healthier course by signing a new petition opposing the inadequate and unaffordable new insurance plans in this law. The petition was started this week by a number of highly respected physicians in Massachusetts, including a former U.S. Surgeon General. If you have questions about it you can email: director@MassCare.org
Please take 2 minutes now to read and to sign your name to this online petition at:
http://www.pnhp.org/MApetition.php
Thank you.
Mr. DiMasi, we were also wondering: Is the Massachusetts state pension system adequately funded?
Mr. DiMasi,
This law is not even close to a success when only 3% to 4% of people that have been nailed by the Connector’s math wizard for the plans above $57 month have enrolled.
The costs are too high for low-wage earners who are trying to keep a roof over their heads, heat and eat, pay property taxes, etc. as the cost of everything soars higher each month. Copays were not calculated into the costs per an op ed column in the Globe in April and the fact that the Connector needs to monitor how many will be able to attain care (i.e. pay the copays plus not get bamboozled by the HMOs which is what HMOs do best) and how many go into debt says it all. Just who do you think you and the people on the Connector are? Gods?
You show only utter disrespect for the hard-working residents of MA who are struggling to make ends meet on mostly stagnate incomes as you pat yourself on the back, day after day, supporting this aggregious mandate that will put many individuals and families into debt or further debt than they may already be. And to financially penalize those who cannot afford to purchase these inadequate plans is a heinous act because they cannot afford the penalities either.
The Connector hasn’t even bothered to figure into their equations the sporadic incomes of those who are self-employed or who have 2 and 3 part-time jobs with varied hours among other scenarios. They just barrel onward congratulating themselves that they’ve done such a fine job and dreaming that the insurance companies will so happy to have all these new customers that they will lower their costs next year and provide better coverage. What planet do these people live on?
What about small businesses who opt for the $295 fee per uninsured employee and then get hit with the $50,000 penalty under the “free rider” clause? These small businesses will probably go bankrupt.
Yesiree! This mandated insurance will no nothing more than cause worse economic crisis in this state than already exists, except possibly for the $0 premium enrollees who, for the most part, were already enrolled in Mass Health. All you had to do there was flick your Bic and change the name of the plan.
The total of the monies spent thus far on the enormous salaries of the Connector and the rest of the bureaucracy, the administrative costs of the private insurance companies, advertising in the millions and going higher everyday, lobbying by the insurance/medical/pharma cartel which is surely built into the cost of these plans as well as those of residents who are already insured through their jobs could have already been used to help fund single-payer, quality, comprehensive HEALTHCARE for every resident in MA, regardless of income.
But then, alas, all of you would lose out if you removed the private companies from the picture.
And when I hear, “Well, it’s a start, it’s not perfect,” I cringe because you are playing with people’s lives. The answer to expanding health insurance is most certainly not to experiment with the most vulnerable of taxpayers.
Shame on you.
Bravo and well said, d bridges!
Mr. DiMasi, do you have the guts to respond?
Apparently he’s a gutless wonder. However, I didn’t expect a response from him. He just likes to hear himself talk.