Lessons from the Massachusetts healthcare experiment

Appaently, yet another experiment on a relatively small scale (state) is not enough to learn, they want to go for a grand experiment on the national scale.

Republicans could do well to point out the failures of Massachusetts. Tennessee, Michigan, Hawaii "experiments" to deliver on promises of lowering costs and providing better care in current debate... and to take a position that each and any state (or even city, like San Francisco does now) can, if they desire, choose their own plan to go bankrupt in the name of achieving " universal insurance" and "free healthcare".

“So the state still has some of the most expensive medical care in the U.S. And costs are rising faster than the national average. Far faster than wages too.”

Thanks Mitt! We need business experience like Mitt’s at a
time like this. It’s nice to see such convincing evidence
of Mitt’s business wisdom on display!!!

He’s just wonderful...

OUTSTANDING suggestion! The laboratories of democracy(cities/states) can become the stomping grounds for socialists. Just don’t force the rest of us to pay for your failures (socialist security, medicaid/medicare, etc., etc.)

Lesson 1. It doe not work.

Lesson 2. It doe not work.

Lesson 3. It doe not work.

Lesson 4. It doe not work.

.................

Lesson 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. It doe not work.

Bump

PROOF RomneyCARE is a Disaster (and he is clueless)

“DEATH PANELS OPEN FOR BUSINESS IN MASSACHUSETTS”

“President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar defended the
possibility of removing organs from terminally ill patients without their permission.”

“You can’t reap these savings without limiting patients’ choices in some way," said Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess.”

“State plan may place limits on patients’ hospital options( Mass. RomneyCare )”

"Romney Visits Nebraska, Talks Health Care [where he defends Romneycare] “

"Paying the Health Tax in Massachusetts [Romneycare]
Massachusetts requires every resident to have health insurance, and this
year, without informing us directly, the state had changed the rules in a way that made
our bare-bones policy no longer acceptable. Unless we ponied up for a pricier policy we
neither need nor want—or enrolled in a government-sponsored insurance plan—we
would have to pay $1,000 each year to the state.
How did we become outlaws? “

"National Health Preview - The Massachusetts debacle, coming soon to your neighborhood."
It was only a matter of time.
They're trying to manage the huge costs of the subsidized middle-class insurance program that is gradually swallowing the state budget.
The program provides low- or no-cost coverage to about 165,000 residents, or three-fifths of the newly insured, and is budgeted at $880 million for 2010, a 7.3% single-year increase that is likely to be optimistic.
The state's overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006."

A Very Sick Health Plan; Bay State’s ‘Grand Experiment’ Fails [RomneyCare]
"Initiated on Mr. Romney’s gubernatorial watch in 2006, this “experiment” has fallen on hard times, and predictably so. “

Health care in Massachusetts: a warning for America [Romney brings Mass. to its knees]
The Bay State's mandatory insurance law is raising costs, limiting access, and lowering care.
Three years ago, Massachusetts adopted a plan requiring all residents to purchase health
insurance, with state subsidies for lower-income residents. But rather than creating a
utopia of high-quality affordable healthcare, the result has been the exact opposite –
skyrocketing costs, worsened access, and lower quality care."

"‘Severe’ doc shortage seen hiking wait time
“The shortage is getting more severe”"

“Health costs to rise again.( RomneyCare )
The state’s major health insurers plan to raise premiums by about 10 percent next year,
prompting many employers to reduce benefits and shift additional costs to workers.”

“Nation’s ill-advised to follow Mass. plan [Health plan a failure]
September 17, 2009 The canary is dead.
Massachusetts, the model for the ObamaCare universal insurance plan, is the canary in
the health care coal mine. Yesterday, its obit appeared on the front page of both The Wall
Street Journal and The Boston Globe-Democrat “

"Bay State Insurance Premiums Highest in Country - Boston Globe August 22, 2009
Massachusetts has the most expensive family health insurance premiums in the country,
according to a new analysis that highlights the state’s challenge in trying to rein in medical costs
40 percent higher than in 2003. Over the same period, premiums nationwide rose an average of 33 percent..."

"Massachusetts: the laboratory for ObamaCare“

"Massachusetts' Obama-like reforms increase health costs, wait times [RomneyCare]
Premiums are growing 21 to 46 percent faster than the national average"

"Mass. Pushes Rationing to Control Universal Healthcare Costs (RomneyCare)
A 10-member Massachusetts state healthcare advisory board unanimously recommended
that the state begin rationing healthcare to keep the state’s marquee universal health care program afloat financially.”

"1,000 cancer patients 'refused treatment'"

"Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already
ERs in Massachusetts have not seen a downturn in visits. On the contrary, it seems that ER visits are actually on the upswing in the Bay State. In fact, in 2007 they were higher than the national average by 20 percent...”

"Hospital patients 'left in agony'"

"National Health Preview - The Massachusetts debacle, coming soon to your neighborhood.
In Massachusetts's latest crisis,
They're trying to manage the huge costs of the subsidized middle-class insurance program that is gradually swallowing the state budget.
The program provides low- or no-cost coverage to about 165,000 residents, or three-fifths of the newly insured, and is budgeted at $880 million for 2010, a 7.3% single-year increase that is likely to be optimistic.
The state's overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006
Mr. Romney should have known better before signing on to this not-so-grand experiment, especially since the state's "free market" reforms that he boasts about have proven to be irrelevant when not fictional.
Only 21,000 people have used the "connector" that was supposed to link individuals to private insurers."

A Very Sick Health Plan; Bay State’s ‘Grand Experiment’ Fails [RomneyCare]
… fiscal troubles aplenty within Repubican Mitt Romney’s brainchild, Massachusetts’ “grand experiment” in “universal” health care."
"Initiated on Mr. Romney’s gubernatorial watch in 2006, this “experiment” has fallen on hard times, and predictably so.
Even though the Bay State commenced its program with a far smaller percentage of uninsured residents than exists nationwide,
“RomneyCare” is threatening to bankrupt the state.“

"Dem Congresswoman Admits Obama Health Care Plan Will Destroy Private Health Insurance Industry"

"Romney’s mistreatments a sick man, as Gov. Mitt Romney meets a medical marijuana patient"

PROOF OBAMA - CARE is a Disaster (and Congress could care less)

“The former CBO director, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, warns today on the effect ObamaCare
will have on our economy and health care. …This bill will lead to a huge middle class tax increase:
The bill creates a new health entitlement program that the Congressional Budget Office
(CBO) estimates will grow over the longer term at a rate of 8% annually, which is much
faster than the growth rate of the economy or tax revenues.“

”When Barack Obama ran for president, he promised that his health care plan would
"lower health-care costs by $2,500 for the typical family." Now, it turns out that new
legislation that he supports creating public-private "co-operatives" will increase the costs
of family health insurance by $4,000 by 2019.”

”Robert Reich Reveals Brutal Health Care Truths; MSM Snores
"We're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that
technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you
maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive...so we're going to let
you die."

”PriceWaterhouseCoopers concluded that the cost of health insurance for the average
family will rise by $4,000 by 2019, as compared with doing nothing:”

“Customers will pay big for health fix: insurers”

“A major new report confirms the worst fears of many: Health care reform will raise the
costs for most Americans—by about 18% on average. That is on top of existing inflation of health coverage.”

“The WSJ Guide to ObamaCare. A comprehensive collection of our editorials. "

“45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul
Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under
consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting
down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.
The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors' own lobby
— the powerful American Medical Association “

"Obama health care plan projected to cost 5.2 million jobs
In addition wages would be “stunted” for another 10.2 million wage earners."

"Oregon Offers Terminal Patients Doctor-Assisted Suicide Instead of Medical Care
PORTLAND, Ore. — Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to their state for health care
were denied treatment and offered doctor-assisted suicide instead
"[How could they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life?"

"Obama Health-Care Would Drive Up Inflation and Health-Care Costs
ObamaCare would shrink the economy, drive up health-care costs and inflation,
and increase the deficit,
Overall, total federal expenditures will be 5.6 percent higher than otherwise by 2019, adding $285.6 billion to the federal deficit in 2019”

"Pushing Veterans Toward the Grave”

Definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

PROOF Socialized Medicine is a Disaster

"Hospital patients 'left in agony'"
"Patients were allegedly left screaming in pain and drinking from flower vases on a nightmare hospital ward.
She said: "We saw patients drinking out of..."

“Woman bleeds to death after doctor punctures jugular - and no blood is available(UK) "

“Canadian Aboriginals receive body bags for flu

Health officials ordered an investigation Thursday into why the Canadian government
sent body bags to an Aboriginal reserve in Manitoba after community leaders requested
assistance to deal with an expected outbreak of swine flu. “

"Patient with ulcer collapses and dies after paramedics tell her: 'Stop being a drama queen'"

"Doctors said I'd had a miscarriage and did nothing as my premature baby fought for his life"

"British Death Panel IBD Editorials September 10, 2009
Single Payer: In Britain, where the public option is about all most patients get,
a newborn has died because national guidelines recommend that the baby not be treated."

"Is This The Obamacare Future? Overworked Doctors in Australia Worried They Are Killing Patients
there are long waiting lists for orthopedic surgery (median wait for total hip replacement is 88 days;
10% of patients waited over 345 days in 1999 to 2000), and cataract surgery (median is 73 days; 10% waited more than 316 days)."

"Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets"

"Sentenced to death on the NHS ….
they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

"NHS blunders allowed cannibal Peter Bryan to kill two”

"Paramedics told: 'Let accident victims die if they want to' in new row over patient rights (UK)"

"Patients Forced To Wait Hours In Ambulances Parked Outside A&E Departments"

"Cancer survivor confronts the health secretary on 62-day wait (UK)"

"Hospital patient so shocked at dirty ward she climbed out of bed to clean it herself."

"Kidney cancer patients denied life-saving drugs by NHS rationing body NICE (UK) "

"Girl, 3, has heart operation cancelled three times because of bed shortage (UK)."

Just because every socialist plan ever invented has failed horribly is no reason not to try them again.

bookmark

Lucky for the few sane people left in MA that it is a small state and it is easy to move.

That's Politricians alright.

“So the state still has some of the most expensive medical care in the U.S. And costs are rising faster than the national average. Far faster than wages too.”

Several week ago the head line in Columbus Distspach (OH), was Health Care Cost has increase 131% in the last 10 years.
0r 13.1 % per year.

My cost of living gage is the price of a small cup coffee and two plain donuts which I have purchased at the same donut shop since 1999.
In 1999 my gage cost $.90, today it cost $2.90.
You do the math.

You do the math.

200% increase would be $2.70, so it's greater than 200% increase (222%) in 10 years. But then, what did you expect, we all know that donut industry and companies are very "deceptive and dishonest" :

Obama: Insurance Companies are 'Deceptive, Dishonest' - CNBC / Reuters, 2009 October 17.

U.S. President Barack Obama lashed out Saturday against the "deceptive and dishonest" efforts of health insurance companies, who he said are trying to kill healthcare reform, no matter the cost to the country.
Sharpening his attack on insurers, Obama also signaled support for a congressional review of the insurance industry's long-standing exemption from federal anti-trust laws.
Some Democrats want the privilege repealed.
The Democratic president's push to revamp the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry, his top domestic policy priority, received a big boost this week when the Senate Finance Committee approved its version of a reform measure with the support of Republican Senator Olympia Snowe.
Many experts expect some version of a healthcare bill will pass this year, but there are still major disagreements on details, including whether the measure will include a government-run insurance program, the "public option." "For the first time ever, all five committees in Congress responsible for health reform have passed a version of legislation," Obama said in his weekly radio address.
"As I speak to you today, we are closer to reforming the health care system than we have ever been in history." However, he acknowledged the overhaul still must clear significant hurdles before becoming law.
"And there are still those who would try to kill reform at any cost," he said. "For decades, whenever we have tried to reform the system, the insurance companies have done everything in their considerable power to stop us," Obama said.
"And they're earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exception from our anti-trust laws, a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing," he said. .....

Exactly, the problem is not socialism, fascism or communism, it’s that the people who went wayward and failed the system when they were running the socialist governments - Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc.

I think it's something that would be an easy sell and would appeal to many people who don't want federal government's "one size fits all" plan, but are concerned with being accused of "do-nothing" and "against reform" attitude.

Reference to San Francisco experiment with what they call a "public option" - San Francisco has its own 'public option' - FR / LATimes, October 04, 2009.

Don’t know if you are being sarcastic or not, (I suspect you are), but that is exactly what the liberals believe, i.e. that if only the RIGHT PEOPLE were in charge, they could create heaven on earth.

Thanks for the link at post #17. I did not know that. BTTT!

I did mock the generally Utopian tendencies of liberals to think / feel of socialism "that if only the RIGHT PEOPLE were in charge, they could create heaven on earth", as you well put it.

I've heard them enough times to quite eloquently express these notions that it didn't take any effort to write that post.

One reason RomneyCare is more expensive is because the state legislature mandated cadillac policies for everyone.

Tennessee, Michigan, Hawaii "experiments" to deliver on promises of lowering costs and providing better care in current debate...

I thought I read that TN and HI had repealed theirs -- just too expensive and were really breaking the budget.

The problem with RomneyCARE is that Romney did not care.
Romney is a socialist, Marxist, proObama, propedophile.

The dangerous this is that if anyone opposes them, they must be eliminated.

I thought I read that TN and HI had repealed theirs -- just too expensive and were really breaking the budget.

Exactly! Whether they are repealed or scaled down, they have been expensive and failed experiments, so why do something on the grandiose national scale with these experiments that promise to lower costs but already in reality, in several states, have been breaking the bank (as if it's not broken already) and can be left to other, "progressive" states or cities to try and try again - Republicans could do well to point out the failures of Massachusetts. Tennessee, Michigan, Hawaii "experiments" to deliver on promises of lowering costs and providing better care in current debate...

But insurance premiums for most residents are going up, not down. Many middle-class people who had insurance before the overhaul see little change -- except that they're spending more. They're seeing little or no difference in the quality of their care. .....
Robert Laszewski, a healthcare policy analyst and former insurance company executive, calls the finance panel's bill "Massachusetts all over again." .....
Among those who have trouble seeing the benefits of what Massachusetts did are 62-year-old Joan Young and her husband, David, who live in a suburb west of Boston. They pay more than $1,100 monthly for insurance, plus a $1,000 deductible each before coverage kicks in.
Their insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, like the others in the state, says it expects to raise the price of premiums by 10% next year.
"It's not helping people like us," Young says. "They forget about the middle class."
Because she has serious medical issues, the Youngs encountered another problem as well:
Massachusetts, like Congress and President Obama, shied away from anything that might interfere with the relationship between consumers and their existing healthcare insurance. That left the Youngs free to choose the coverage they wanted. But it also left them responsible for thousands of dollars in medical expenses not covered by their plan.
Now that these and other problems have surfaced, the Legislature is going back and trying again, this time fashioning policies to govern insurers' profits and doctors' pay -- entering a second phase of healthcare reform that many analysts think also lies ahead at the national level.
A special state commission established to tackle the cost problem said that the stakes were high. Continued cost growth, it said in a report this summer, "threatens the viability" of the healthcare initiative. .....

Inevitable cost controls and rationing of health care are dreaded words for a reason. People just need to become aware of what is coming if these Utopian ideas and plans are implemented, and these states are ready-made examples of it, unlike the problems with Canadian or UK national health care systems which are mostly unknown to people in US and can be easily distorted to sound "good" and "free or cheap".

As the Project Triangle goes "You can get a product or a service fast, good and cheap - pick two." Democrats do even worse, they are deciding which one of the three to pick for everyone.

Well, who would of thought, the only state that voted for McGovern, one of the most liberal, leftist states in the Union.

Who would of been so stupid, ignorant of a supposed conservative to work for, push, critically deliver and sign such a power into the hands of the Mass state legislature?

Who? Mitt, that's who. It's almost as if he was so groveling desperate to fluff up any, any sort of suppose accomplhisment to bluster, paper over, bamboozle his way into the White House as the first son of Moroni, and Massachusetts, conservatives and even the physicians, hospitals, be damned.

And, that's the Mitt I know.

Shallow, unprincipled, desperate, carpet bagging rootless, smiling fraud. And, a good family man. ( the guy has no shame. )