Mass. health meltdown is your future

NY Post ^ | May 25, 2010 | SALLY PIPES

[Scanian]

The future of US medicine under ObamaCare is already on display in Massachusetts. The top four health insurers there just posted first-quarter losses of more than $150 million. Most of them blamed the state's decision to keep premiums at last year's levels for individual and small-business policies, when they'd proposed double-digit hikes to match the soaring costs they've seen under the state's universal-coverage law.

The companies have gone to court to challenge the state's action -- it apparently had no basis for its ruling beyond the political needs of Gov. Deval Patrick. If they win, Bay State health premiums will continue their rapid rise; if they lose, they'll eventually have to stop doing business in Massachusetts -- and the state will be that much closer to a "single payer" system of socialized medicine.

The Massachusetts "health reform" disease means more than just bureaucrats setting prices. It also includes rising government spending and taxes; politicians demonizing doctors, hospitals and insurers -- and patients getting lectured that the restrictions of managed care are good medicine

[Oceander]

MassaCare is grotesque - it's like watching a slow-motion train-wreck, or a greek tragedy, where the outcome is fore-ordained, and the only question is working out the particular details of who gets smashed to bits when.

Which raises a speculative sort of question: If the governor of Massachussets has started to use executive power to declare price controls and the like, at what point does the enfettered exercise of executive power cross the threshhold from being a form of elected republican government to being something other than that, and would that trigger the provisions of Art. IV, sec. 4 of the Constitution, pursuant to which the federal government is obliged to "guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government ...."?

Just wondering.

[raybbr]

If the governor of Massachusetts has started to use executive power to declare price controls and the like, at what point does the unfettered exercise of executive power cross the threshold...

I would say it already has passed the line...

[raybbr]

Nice Graphic. What program do you use?

[Oceander]

GIMP.

[omega4179]

Hopefully this is the end of Mitt Rino.

[DrC]

“at what point does the enfettered exercise of executive power cross the threshhold from being a form of elected republican government to being something other than that, and would that trigger the provisions of Art. IV, sec. 4 of the Constitution, pursuant to which the federal government is obliged to “guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government ....”?”

It’s a great question, but expecting a fascist federal government to police the fascist behavior of a rogue state seems like wishful thinking.

[raybbr]

Really? On Ubuntu or another one?

[TimSkalaBim]

This is the democrat ‘boot on the neck’ applied to health care.

[rbg81]

I have a feeling that having the Insurance companies go bankrupt is all part of the Obama plan. Another milestone on the road to a single payer “utopia”.

[Oceander]

On Vista, 64-bit