Massachusetts suffering fallout from universal healthcare program (OneNewsNow.com)

Massachusetts suffering fallout from universal healthcare program

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 4/16/2008 11:00:00 AM

stethoscope A leading healthcare reform expert says she's not surprised that the new universal healthcare program in Massachusetts brokered by former Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Ted Kennedy is running several hundred million dollars over budget.

Associated Press reports costs are soaring for the new healthcare law in Massachusetts. Bay State lawmakers are considering a dollar-a-pack hike in the state's cigarette tax to help pay for the larger-than-expected enrollment in the law's subsidized insurance plans. Under the law, anyone making less than the federal poverty level is eligible for free care. Those making up to three times the poverty level can get subsidized plans.

Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Virginia-based Galen Institute, says although the number of insured residents has risen by nearly 350,000 since Mitt Romney signed the law two years ago, virtually all of it is subsidized by the taxpayer.

Grace-Marie Turner (Galen Institute) "When you make health insurance virtually free, people will sign up -- but then somebody has to pay the bill," Turner explains. "And not only are they looking at new taxes [to pay that bill], but they're also trying to put more and more clamps on prices to try to keep the prices down ...." But as most people know, she adds, "price controls don't work."

The president of the Galen Institute contends the state practiced bad budgeting. "If they expected to get to universal coverage, they should have assumed that all the people who are going to get free or nearly free care would sign up," she argues. "So something's not connecting here.

"I think it shows the difficulty of starting out with a goal for universal coverage without first addressing the important issue of cost," she continues, posing questions that should have been addressed up front. "Why does healthcare [and] why does health insurance cost so much? What can we do about that? And then expand coverage to more affordable coverage rather than trying to clamp a lid on the current system, as Massachusetts did."

Turner points out while more Massachusetts residents now may have an insurance card, they also have a bigger tax burden as a result of the state's new universal healthcare law -- and on top of that, they do not have better access to a doctor. "[E]ven people who have private insurance [and] are paying their premiums are finding it increasingly difficult to find doctors who will see them," she notes.

Some Bay State residents, Turner explains, are being put on waiting lists of 6-8 weeks to just get a physical because there are not enough primary-care doctors see all the people who now have insurance.

Turner says it is unfortunate that when there is a bigger role for government in the health sector -- as there is now in Massachusetts -- it opens the doors for bureaucracy to increase price, create mandates, and ultimately take away individuals' freedom to find the kind of health insurance that would better suit them.