Most Americans are concerned about the rising cost of health care, eroding health benefits, and rising health insurance costs. While a majority of Americans, and nearly all Massachusetts residents, have access to health care, it seems as though we keep paying more for health, but getting less care. Only ten years from now, if nothing is done at the national level, Americans can expect to pay 68% more than at present for health insurance and out of pocket costs of health care. Women, especially in a deteriorating economy, are more likely to be adversely affected by the cost of health care.
There are also a significant and growing group of our fellow Americans who have no health insurance, have inadequate benefits, or who are worried that if they lose their job, they will lose their benefits. Estimates suggest that the number of uninsured in the U. S. will grow from the current 46 million to 65.7 million people by 2019 – ten years from now. How health care is reformed nationally should be of direct interest and concern to all of us, especially to Massachusetts where significant reforms are already being implemented with 97.4% of our people already covered.Â
The U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate are now working feverishly to mark up health reform bills over the next few weeks that, if successfully reconciled and enacted into law, will make health care more affordable and reduce the cost of care. Everyone – individuals, families, employers, taxpayers, health care professionals, insurers – has an important stake in the outcome of the growing debate.  It is President Barack Obama’s top domestic legislative priority.
We know from the media that the Obama administration and congressional leaders have made a very public commitment to build on the existing employer-based insurance system.  The President has promised that those of us who like our health coverage and who like our current health care provider are likely to be able to keep that coverage and that provider. We can also expect that the costs might not rise as fast and the quality of care will remain or improve if the new law includes many of the provisions that are under consideration on Capitol Hill in Washington. The principles under discussion are: coverage for all; right care at the right time in the right place; insurance market reform; and individual coverage mandate; determining how to pay for the cost of reform; and the possibility of a public option for providing affordable insurance.
The specifics of the national health care reform bill are still not finalized given the many, often competing ideas under consideration. Congress is working to have proposals from each branch finalized by the end of July to be negotiated in conference committee during August and September. All of us in Massachusetts hope that it succeeds in ways that complement the progress we’ve made and, perhaps, provides additional resources to support the steps we’ve taken. We certainly hope that it also strengthens and hastens our efforts to improve health care quality and safety, and to reduce costs and wasteful practices. A very hopeful bi-partisan proposal presented by the Brookings Institution also has advanced the idea of a comparative effectiveness institute to make sure that medical procedures being used on us reflect the best and latest scientific research.
The Massachusetts Senate has established a special committee to follow the unfolding debate on national health reform and to guide our Congressional delegation as they work on this important policy. The special committee will be holding informational meetings with experts on our Massachusetts plan and how it could be complemented or harmed by provisions under consideration in the Congress. We will, then, be better able to advise our state’s Congressional delegation, especially those who along with Senator Kennedy and his staff, are working directly on committees with jurisdiction over various components of the national reform plan. Every citizen can become informed about national health reform through the media. Those who want to follow the developments at the national level can also do so through www.healthreform.gov.
Richard T. Moore is the Chairman of the Special Senate Committee on National Health Reform. He was among the key leaders in developing and implementing the landmark Massachusetts Health Reform Law (Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006) and the Health Care Quality Improvement and Cost Containment Law (Chapter 305 of the Acts of 2008).
“All of us in Massachusetts hope that it succeeds in ways that complement the progress we’ve made and, perhaps, provides additional resources to support the steps we’ve taken.”
Senator Moore,
I dont know what rock you are living under these days, but most of us know that the MA plan has failed, and we pray every day that the national plan:
a) will not resemble the MA plan in the slightest which we see by the various bills isn’t the case – they are the MA plan on steroids, and we take pity the people of this country and know that once they realize they’ve been duped big-time, all hell is going to break loose; and
b) will be HR676 – Expanded and Improved Medicare for All which will provide equitable, affordable coverage for everyone in this country in a fiscally responsible manner unlike the MA plan which meets none of these requirements but instead exploits the majority of the targeted population; or
c) will never be signed into law because the status quo would be better than living under a decree as oppressive and regressive as the MA plan.
So, when you say all of us in MA, SPEAK FOR YOURSELF. You have absolutely no right to speak for the individuals, families and small businesses in the Bay State who have been caused much financial harm and stress from this bureaucratic morass which does not deliver affordable, quality care for all and resembles nothing more than coercion and collusion on the grandest of scales. Just who do you think you are?
For those who wish to know the truth about the MA plan, please read Trudy Lieberman’s latest story in her Massachusetts series at http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/health_reform_lessons_from_mas_3.php?page=all and be sure to read Parts I, II and III in the archives which can be reached by clicking on the hyperlink in the opening paragraph. You will also enjoy her Baucus Watch series at the same site.
Be sure to watch Bill Moyers at 9:00 EST July 24 – Marcia Angell and Trudy Lieberman.
As a former CEO I could only wish that my state legislature would have passed a law requiring all citizens to buy my product. Lucky is the insurance industry. I know where my investments are going if they expand this rip-off to a national program.
And as well, how much in campaign contributions has Sen. Moore received from the industry?
Don’t you dare pretend to speak for us in Massachusetts Moore. You are not a politician so much as an insurance salesman and ALL of your back room dealings on behalf of your big money masters-health insurers- prove it.
There’s a reason GM and Chrysler are bankrupt. They were known as healthcare companies who happened to make cars, while GM in Canada made cars for $3000 less per unit due to their single payer healthcare. The old Wall St. saw was “What’s good for GM is good for America”. Well, they are now bankrupt. America cannot compete with Moore’s disastrous non reform of healthcare, I consider his advocacy of the Massachusetts mandated extortion of residents to be unconscionable. And please don’t cite all the poor in MA. who’ve been enrolled for very expensive “free” care. I’m paying their bills which would be a small fraction under a single payer system that I would gladly then foot. Additionally, any 8 year old could have taken the state checkbook and enrolled the entire free care pool. There’s a reason the state calls their top tier healthcare policies “Gold”-as it is a gold mine for insurers siphoned straight out of residents pockets.
http://masshealthlawtruth.org/mass_health_mandate_truth_vs_spin_1.ht.
Our leaders, Moore especially so, wish to do to our country what Massachusetts did to us. (see facts here: http://masshealthlawtruth.org/ ) They’ll soon try to sell us the “Massachusetts Mandate” for health insurance. A victim of this fraud, I learned you’ll become a criminal if you don’t buy from their suppliers-the insurance companies. You’ll be charged with tax evasion and fined thousands yearly for not buying. Your intelligence and patriotism they will question when they say… “we need a uniquely American solution”. How American is a health care dictatorship? One-third of extorted premiums fund insurance bureaucracy, profits and wasteful duplicate staffing of thousands of companies. Politicians will prey on human sentiments to insure the needy. They won’t reveal you’re subsidizing the poor via massive monthly premiums to cover costs, insurers’ profit margins and bloated bureaucracies feeding at your trough. Insurers costs are minimized by keeping your costs sky high. Your policy is so full of holes, no legislator would accept it. A 49 year old MA. couple earning just $43,716 GROSS, must buy a $7,000 policy. It’s not real insurance: $2000 deductible each, 20% co-pays and layers of red tape-a nightmare. Real insurance for a family (which Politicians and single payer insured Canadians enjoy) costs $13,914 to $21,000+/year. To compete with their single payer Canada recently offered private insurance, the type Mr. Moore is selling. Not ONE policy was sold: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/03/30/mtl-health-insurance-interest-0330.html
Single-payer is our police and fire departments, public works and military. Insurers and their shills are a tireless lot, fueled by untold sums, they’ve co-opted the political process as bankers did leading to economic disaster.
Big insurance hopes to do to the nation what they’ve done to us, success means it’ll be the greatest redistribution of your cash to private industry ever fashioned by politicians.