Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during the Dallas County Republican Convention in Adel, Iowa, in this Saturday, March 11, 2006, file photo. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Posted on 04/06/2006 10:41:10 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
BOSTON - The most radical portion of Massachusetts' move toward universal health care — a requirement that all residents carry insurance — is giving indigestion to some who view it as a breathtaking expansion of government power.
"This is the first time in the country's history where simply by virtue of living somewhere you are mandated to purchase a product," said Michael Tanner, of the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
Supporters of the idea, including Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, cite the mandate as a pillar of the health plan because it forces individuals to take responsibility for their health care.
Many conservatives are embracing the so-called individual mandate, but some liberals and unions are suspicious. They typically prefer assessments on employers, which the Massachusetts plan also includes.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the mandate "unconscionable" and accused Massachusetts of taking "a page out of the Newt Gingrich playbook."
"Forcing uninsured workers to purchase health care coverage or face higher taxes and fines is the cornerstone of Mr. Gingrich's health care reform proposals," Sweeney said.
Romney and other supporters of the mandate say it spreads the burden of covering the uninsured among ordinary citizens, business and government. Romney is expected to sign the bill, though he may veto a $295-an-employee fee for businesses that don't offer insurance.
Romney, a possible candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, has compared the individual mandate to car insurance, which the state requires for everyone who owns a car. Massachusetts, under the bill, will also require everyone to have health insurance.
According to Tanner, that's a false comparison.
"Driving has always been seen as a privilege that can be revoked," he said. "This is making me buy a product simply by virtue of breathing."
What no one can say for sure is how many of the estimated 500,000 uninsured people in Massachusetts would be subject to the individual mandate — in effect, how many earn enough to buy insurance but don't.
That, according to John McDonough of Health Care for All, a state advocacy group, is one of the complex bill's many unanswered questions.
"Whether it will work out or not, we don't know," McDonough said. "No state has ever gone down this road."
The bill, a dense 145 pages, is still in the works. Some of the grittier details, such as exactly what it means to be able to afford insurance, will be sorted out when the actual regulations are drafted.
Still, there are enough details to win over supporters and perturb opponents.
Under the plan, which would take effect in July 2007, everyone who files a state tax return, beginning in 2008, will have to indicate if they have health insurance.
The bill also requires Medicaid and private insurers to turn over to the state lists of their enrollees each month.
Anyone deemed able to buy insurance, but who is still uninsured, will face increasing penalties.
For example, during the year they would lose the ability to claim a personal exemption on their state tax returns. That would cost an individual about $189 and a couple filing jointly about $378.
The poorest residents — single adults making about $9,800 or less — will get access to insurance with no premiums and no deductibles.
The bill also includes an appeals process.
___
On the Net:
Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org
AFL-CIO: http://www.aflcio.org
Health Care for All: http://www.hcfama.org
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during the Dallas County Republican Convention in Adel, Iowa, in this Saturday, March 11, 2006, file photo. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
No, for breathing and expecting to be treated in an emergency room anytime one needs it.
The counterarguments to this plan are actually making it more appealing to me. The principled objection Tanner raises might hold water if there were people walking around, "breathing", with no insurance, yet who had also somehow waived their right to all emergency-room access. But that is not the case and (it seems) there is no community anywhere willing to let hospitals deny treatment. Therefore, requiring people to be insured against costs which there is a risk of anyone costing the state, makes a great deal of sense. Unless of course we're willing to drop the requirement that hospitals treat patients regardless of ability to pay. Are we? I doubt it.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Yeah, we do not want to force people to purchase insurance, but we force people to care for people without insurance, and then they never pay for the care they received. Hmmm.
Romney sucks. F him and his Hillary-Care lite.
"I have no idea how long it will take this health care plan to bankrupt Massachusetts. What am I.... Nostradamus?""
But we "have" to vote for them, otherwise we get Hillary!, right?
I think I'll just vote No.
I agree. Piss on the gutless RINO eunuchs.
What complete rubbish of an argument. Unbelievable.
The ''expectation'' of being treated for free in an emergency room is the direct and absolute result of the slime in the Regress passing a law that decrees said result MUST occur, and a jerk of a President signing said bill. Ridiculous at minimum under any circumstance, and laughably idiotic given that the population is and has been known for some time to be becoming older on average.
This nonsense is yet another attempt at state-socialist ''one-payer'' nationalised (in this case, ''statised'' of course) health ''insurance''. This kwapola is both predictable in its deviousness and in its misrepresentation. Not to mention this concept's to-date utterly horrid results in both the UK and Canada...and of course, in the unlamented former Soviet Union and its former set of nation-slaves. And, coming soon, worse results yet in Wonderland (that would be the European Union, for you uninformed types).
There is no statistical reason whatever that those between 25 and 35 should, or would purchase health ''insurance''. Yes, it's a bit of a gamble not to, but equally, the expectation of ANY member of that age cohort, bar only those with pre-existing conditions, regarding risk/reward by NOT purchasing insurance in absolutely and utterly positive.
The other way to say this, if you don't happen to be a statistician, is that the typical 25-35 cohort member would have to be a complete idiot to purchase health ''insurance'' for HIM OR HERSELF, voluntarily.
No American (or at least, no citizen who honours the Constitution) believes in any mystical sort of ''right'' to health care. Go ahead, go right ahead and cheer Kennedyland for passing this filth, and watch straightaway as the younger productive citizens (I couldn't care less about the crowd who go to the emergency room with a case of the sniffles) move some very few miles into another state.
You lot are simply too stupid to understand that, given that any individual has the power to make a choice, NO free citizen will sit for this scheme of being required to purchase health ''insurance''. The minute that you statists dictate that a citizen MUST spend X dollars in manner Y, the very notion of private property ceases to exist, for you will not limit yourselves to manner Y, but will surely also dictate in the most convenient short order also that citizens MUST also spend their own dollars in manners K, L, and M (and as many others as you can conceive).
And you lot will never cease to try to marshal the coercive force of gov't in order to force otherwise intelligent citizens, of any age, to participate in your provably failed schemes. Shades of Lenore K. Sullivan, redux. (Who's that, you ask? The very asking of that question is just another indication of your historical illiteracy.)
If you weren't a state socialist (which term is accurate usage given your comments) you'd remember immediately where THIS particular downward spiral began. Care to name the President of that date, and the ''rationale'' (read: excuse) for his attempt to nationalise and thus destroy the best health care system in any nation on the planet?
I will give you this much; said President worked wonders in starting the destruction, and the corrupt Johnson made it worse...but I'll still wager you haven't clue one (name said President and his specific executive order) on the origins of the now sadly ongoing destruction of American health care.
Bah!
We have to be careful with this one.
Most of the people who don't have medical insurance are not those consuming health care services -- and so their added premiums would be pure profit to the insurance companies. The heavy users/abusers of medical services, are usually already on disability receiving these services for free, so what the insurers want are more healthy people to pay insurance premiums who never have to use these services.
Another reason I don't like having medical/dental insurance is that unnecessary procedures tend to be performed in the thinking that the patient won't mind or care because they have medical insurance.
Massachusetts is renowned for insurance fraud -- just like Hawaii, and all these entitlement oriented states. Because the thinking is that insurance money is free money -- and so those who don't avail themselves of it are fools -- by the reckoning of all the unscrupulous people both in the profession as well as on the consumer side, who believe they are entitled to get their money's worth by getting as much medical attention as possible, also taking their sick pay/benefits, rther than losing it. So the reward is for sickness and not for health.
So just like the schools, they get more money for poor performance rather than eliminating the need for more education. Since the money is in health care -- and not health, the bias is to produce poorer health -- rather than reducing the need for more costly health care -- with the many high paying jobs they create.
What complete rubbish of an argument. Unbelievable.
The ''expectation'' of being treated for free in an emergency room is the direct and absolute result of the slime in the Regress passing a law that decrees said result MUST occur, and a jerk of a President signing said bill. Ridiculous at minimum under any circumstance, and laughably idiotic given that the population is and has been known for some time to be becoming older on average.
This nonsense is yet another attempt at state-socialist ''one-payer'' nationalised (in this case, ''statised'' of course) health ''insurance''. This kwapola is both predictable in its deviousness and in its misrepresentation. Not to mention this concept's to-date utterly horrid results in both the UK and Canada...and of course, in the unlamented former Soviet Union and its former set of nation-slaves. And, coming soon, worse results yet in Wonderland (that would be the European Union, for you uninformed types).
There is no statistical reason whatever that those between 25 and 35 should, or would purchase health ''insurance''. Yes, it's a bit of a gamble not to, but equally, the expectation of ANY member of that age cohort, bar only those with pre-existing conditions, regarding risk/reward by NOT purchasing insurance in absolutely and utterly positive.
The other way to say this, if you don't happen to be a statistician, is that the typical 25-35 cohort member would have to be a complete idiot to purchase health ''insurance'' for HIM OR HERSELF, voluntarily.
No American (or at least, no citizen who honours the Constitution) believes in any mystical sort of ''right'' to health care. Go ahead, go right ahead and cheer Kennedyland for passing this filth, and watch straightaway as the younger productive citizens (I couldn't care less about the crowd who go to the emergency room with a case of the sniffles) move some very few miles into another state.
You lot are simply too self-deceiving and stupid to acknowledge that, given that any individual has the power to make a choice, NO free citizen will sit for this scheme of being required to purchase health ''insurance''. The minute that you statists dictate that a citizen MUST spend X dollars in manner Y, the very notion of private property ceases to exist, for you will not limit yourselves to manner Y, but will surely also dictate in your most convenient short order that citizens MUST also spend their own dollars in manners K, L, and M (and as many others as you can conceive).
And you lot will never cease to try to marshal the coercive force of gov't in order to force otherwise intelligent citizens, of any age, to participate in your provably failed schemes. Shades of Lenore K. Sullivan, redux. (Who's that, you ask? The very asking of that question is just another indication of your historical illiteracy.)
If you weren't a state socialist (which term is accurate usage given your comments) you'd remember immediately where THIS particular downward spiral began. Care to name the President of that date, and the ''rationale'' (read: excuse) for his indirect attempt to nationalise and thus destroy the best health care system in any nation on the planet? Odds-on, you probably still today cheer this b*st*rd.
I will give you this much; said President worked wonders in starting the destruction, and the corrupt Johnson made it worse...but I'll still wager you haven't clue one (name said President and his specific executive order) on the origins of the now sadly ongoing destruction of American health care.
Bah!
Apologies for the slightly modified double post.
Most states mandate car insurance, why not health?
I think they should just reward people on the basis of how healthy they are. That really is the objective of every society.
Some people get buy without owning a car( ie buses , bikes and walking) They have a choice. People in Mass dont have a choice. Especially business owners. Between the Wal Mart bill and this one it would be a surprise if any business stay in Mass.
Supporters of the idea, including Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, cite the mandate as a pillar of the health plan because it forces individuals to take responsibility for their health care.
This one absolute truth of the universe needed repeating.
I agree with a lot of your sentiment. In fact, I am quite torn. On one hand, we have autonomy and liberty on the other hand, autonomy and liberty.
You should be able to choose to pay for your health care without insurance.
You should also be able to choose not to pay for everyone elses (through taxes, your insurance premiums, etc.)
You are forced to do the latter by the government already. But what if it could be balanced? To be honest, I do not like the mandate for everything, it is inefficient. The insurance company has costs. Insurance is a reverse bet. You are paying money to ensure that you are not hit with medical costs that would affect your financial stability.
Why can't they just mandate a catestrophic care plan?
Something like this: You have to carry a catestrophic insurance plan that covers any expenses over 20% of your annual income. So if you make 40,000 a year and will be effectively uninsured, you can be. You can take a plan that only covers health care over $8,000. But if you only make $9,000 a year, then you can take a plan that only covers health care that costs over $1,800.
This would also eliminate the problems with people going to the doctor when they don't need to because it is "free" (ie. the costs are hidden). It should keep the plans reasonably priced as well. Of course, you have to buy from a private insurer. It provides an incentive to shop around and keeps hospitals from charging $50 for a band-aid or whatever. It also encourages people to buy comprehensive insurance, since they have to buy something.
Couple this with restrictions on the ability to file bankruptcy for medical expenses.
At some point you have to demand responsibility. I guess car insurance should not be required either right?
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