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Re: The Dem's seem ready to go forward on heatlhca
Let's look at the state of Massachusetts that provides healthcare for all: its running out of money: they’ve already begun to ration the healthcare due to exploding and unsustainable costs.
First to be cut? 30,000 "legal" immigrants. Well now, doesn't that bode well for the liberal/progressive mantra?
The new state budget in Massachusetts eliminates healthcare coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants to help close a growing deficit, reversing progress toward universal coverage just as Congress looks to the state as a model for overhauling the nation’s health care system.
The affected immigrants, permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years, are now covered under Commonwealth Care, a subsidized insurance program for low-income residents that is central to the groundbreaking healthcare law enacted in 2006.
Critics of the cut, which would save an estimated $130 million, say it unfairly targets taxpaying residents and threatens the state’s health care experiment at a critical time.
“It either sends the message that healthcare reform cannot be done, period,” said Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, “or it opens the door to doing it halfway and excluding immigrants from the process.”
Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed restoring $70 million to the program, which would partly restore the immigrants’ coverage. But legislative leaders have balked, saying vital programs for other groups would have to be cut as a result. The cut, which would affect only nondisabled adults from 18 to 65 years old, would take effect this month unless the legislature approves Mr. Patrick’s proposal.
“The governor has made a very good and compelling case relative to providing for legal immigrants,” Robert A. DeLeo, the speaker of the State House of Representatives, said. “On the other hand, there is only so much money that we have.”
The healthcare law did “succeed” in one way. Since it’s implementation, MA has the lowest uninsured population, with only 2.6% uninsured, compared with a national average of 15%….
…. for a while, that is. And at rapidly increasing premiums to the insured. Instead, the true legacy of the MA health plan is it’s proof that “reform” relying on government subsidized health care is simply impossible with today’s population trends, declining economy and guaranteed lower earning capacity with Obama’s Congressional spending.
And the legal immigrants cut? They have a double whammy because they do not qualify for other federal aid, including Medicaid.
Is this what Congress has in mind? It must be, because the Kennedy/Dodd health plan was modeled after the MA universal health plan, despite it’s proof that government costs for healthcare have increased 42% in it’s short life span thus far, and sits at 33% above the national average.
Advocates promised that the Massachusetts plan would make health insurance more affordable, but according to a Cato study, insurance premiums have been increasing at nearly double the national average: 7.4 percent in 2007, 8 percent to 12 percent in 2008, and an expected 9 percent increase this year. Health insurance in Massachusetts costs an average of $16,897 for a family of four, compared to a national average of $12,700.
In fact, Michael D. Tanner at Cato predicted the rationing of health care as inevitable in a blog post back in March of this year.
Massachusetts has significantly reduced the number of people in the state who lack health insurance. However, it has not achieved, nor does it expect to reach, universal coverage. (The best estimates suggest that more than 200,000 state residents remain uninsured). And, significantly, roughly 60 percent of newly insured state residents are receiving subsidized coverage, suggesting that the increase in insurance coverage has more to do with increased subsidies (the state now provides subsidies for those earning up to 300 percent of the poverty level or $66,150 for a family of four) than with the mandate.
The cost of those subsidies in the face of predictably rising health care costs has led to program costs far higher than originally predicted. Spending for the Commonwealth Care subsidized program has doubled, from $630 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.3 billion for 2009.
Now the state is turning to a variety of gimmicks to try to hold down costs, including possibly cutting payments to physicians and hospitals by 3-5 percent. However, the Times quotes health reform experts who have studied the Massachusetts system as warning “the state and federal governments may need to place actual limits on health spending, which could lead to rationing of care.”
Not only are those legal immigrants… precisely those the good intents of idiot legislators are trying to protect… being the first busted out of the program, the very hospitals that have served them are also now endangered. One such hospital, Boston Medical Center, filed a lawsuit against the State of Massachusetts.
A hospital that serves thousands of indigent Massachusetts residents sued the state charging that its costly universal health care law is forcing the hospital to cover too much of the expense of caring for the poor.
The hospital, Boston Medical Center, faces a $38 million deficit for the fiscal year ending in September, its first loss in five years. The suit says the hospital will lose more than $100 million next year because the state has lowered Medicaid reimbursement rates and stopped paying Boston Medical “reasonable costs” for treating other poor patients.
“We filed this suit more in sorrow than in anger,” said Elaine Ullian, the hospital’s chief executive. “We believe in healthcare reform to the bottom of our toes, but it was never, ever supposed to be financed on the backs of the poor, and that’s what has happened in Massachusetts.”
The central charge in the suit is that the state has siphoned money away from Boston Medical to help pay the considerable cost of insuring all but a small percentage of residents.
Low-income residents, who have benefited most from expanded access to health care, receive state-subsidized insurance, one of the most expensive aspects of the state plan. But rapidly rising costs and the battered economy have caused more problems than the state and supporters of the 2006 law — including Boston Medical — anticipated.
The suit comes as Congress looks to Massachusetts as a potential model for overhauling the nation’s health care system. Even before the suit, the state’s fiscal crisis had cast doubts on the law’s sustainability.
State officials expressed surprise at the lawsuit, saying that Boston Medical received $1.5 billion in state funds in the past year and should not be seeking more in the midst of a fiscal crisis.
“At a time when everyone funded and served by state government is being asked to do more with less, B.M.C. has been treated no differently,” said Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, the state secretary of health and human services, in a prepared statement. “We are confident that the administration’s actions in this area comply with all applicable law and will be upheld.”
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When a newspaper posed the question, "What's Wrong with the World?" G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response: "Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton." That is the attitude of someone who has grasped the message of Jesus.
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