Posted on 11/25/2007 7:07:26 PM PST by neverdem
BOSTON, Nov. 20 — As the Democratic presidential candidates debate whether Americans should be forced to obtain health insurance, the people of Massachusetts are living the dilemma in real time.
A year after Massachusetts became the only state to require that individuals have health coverage, residents face deadlines to sign up or lose their personal tax exemption, worth $219 on next year’s state income tax returns. More than 200,000 previously uninsured residents have enrolled, but state officials estimate that at least that number, and perhaps twice as many, have not.
Those managing the enrollment effort say it has exceeded expectations. In particular, state-subsidized insurance packages offered to low-income residents have been so popular that the program’s spending may exceed its budget by nearly $150 million.
But the reluctance of so many to enroll, along with the possible exemption of 60,000 residents who cannot afford premiums, has raised questions about whether even a mandate can guarantee truly universal coverage.
Additional concerns have been generated by projections that the state’s insurers plan to raise rates 10 percent to 12 percent next year, twice this year’s national average. That would undercut the plan’s secondary goal of slowing the increase in health costs.
“We’re going to be very aggressive in trying to get those numbers down to single digits,” said Jon M. Kingsdale, executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, the agency that markets the subsidized insurance policies. “If we continue with double-digit inflation, I don’t think health reform is sustainable.”
The state’s experience should be instructive to the presidential campaigns, and to officials in California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has proposed a similar plan. Democratic leaders there initially rejected an individual mandate because labor unions argued that workers might not be able to afford coverage. They have recently reversed...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The corrupt slickster takes from people and gives to his contributers.
Just like the slickster's coverup of the BIGdig.
You nailed it.
For now...
Not if the health care you DON’T want will cost upwards of $6000, single coverage.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
“Mandatory Healthcare? That’s Sick” The Malden Observer
www.wickedlocal.com/malden/news
$219 would buy about a a week or so of decent coverage for me and my wife in Maine.
Hmmm.....
“Particularly, insurers should not be able to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions. That’s the main thing that people don’t get. Even if you can afford it, you can be turned down for minor things.”
If you can wait until you are sick, it isn’t insurance. And insurers do not turn people down for minor things if prices are flexible. Furthermore, there is a guaranteed issue plan in every state by federal law. They tend to be more expensive as you are supposed to buy insurance before you get sick, but you can always get insurance that limits our out-of-pocket to say $6,000 a year no matter what is wrong with you.
You are hostile.
And I’m not a “sir.” Would that fact improve your manners any?
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