James Capretta writes about the Massachusetts state healthcare program and its implications for US healthcare under the bill passed by Congress:
When Massachusetts rolled out its coverage program in 2007, many more people signed up for the new heavily subsidized insurance than was originally predicted by budget officials. Almost immediately, costs far exceeded what had been budgeted, forcing state officials to scramble to find cuts elsewhere in government and other sources of revenue.
After three years, no real progress has been made on rising costs. The program remains well over budget, with no end in sight. Further, state residents who now must buy state-sanctioned coverage are bristling at their rising premiums and the inability to find coverage which covers less and thus costs less.
State politicians are responding to the cost crisis the only way they know how: by promising to impose arbitrary caps on premiums and price controls for medical services. The governor and state regulators have disallowed 90 percent of the premium increases insurers — all of whom are not-for-profit — submitted for their enrollees for the upcoming plan year. The state says premium increases above eight percent are too high and unacceptable, though they themselves don’t have a plan to make health care more efficient in Massachusetts. They just want lower premiums. The insurers have responded by refusing to sell any coverage at the rates the state wants to impose.
Capretta points out that the demographic targeted for subsidized medical coverage under the healthcare bill — basically, those making less than four times the Federal poverty level — contains roughly 130 million people, more than a third of the US population. However, the numbers estimated by the CBO for the cost of the program assume that state-based exchanges will have only 17 million subscribers by 2016.
The potential implications are not good.
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But, they were completely predictable, with a high degree of certainty.
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His motto, apparently, might be "Pain and death good, health bad."
He is not a trustworthy critic of fiscal policy.
Guy, why do you even give these bastards the time of day?
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If you want to make an argument about the costs of the Mass. and national plans that will persuade the unconvinced, use reliable sources. &, seriously, why are you persuaded by the arguments of the untrustworthy?
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In any case, I'm throwing this out here as a discussion point. I'm not saying it's holy writ. Capretta is far from the first I've heard of cost overruns in the Massachusetts health plan. He just happens to be the person making this comparison today. Medicare has its budgetary issues too. In 2005, the Congressional Budget Office projected Medicare spending to grow at an average annual rate of 9 percent over the next 10 years, reaching $766 billion by 2015 (via bnet (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3257/is_4_59/ai_n13621272/)); Jacob Goldstein discussed the ballooning costs of Medicare and Medicaid (http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/02/02/reminder-medicare-medicaid-are-gobbling-up-the-budget/tab/article/) in the WSJ in February; and also in February, American Medical News reported that the current budget proposal freezes Medicare pay to doctors for ten years (http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/02/08/gvl10208.htm) in an effort to control costs. Virtually no government program ever somes in under, or even within, its original budget estimates. Why is it unreasonable to talk about the possibility that the new health care scheme will follow the same pattern? Is it that threatening?
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And another very large fraction of those people are getting their insurance from their employer (mandated under the law.)
No telling if it will be 8M or 34M, but it won't be 130M..
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