Posted on 05/27/2008 2:27:47 PM PDT by Graybeard58
It's healthy and constructive to view the states as 50 busy laboratories where public-policy notions undergo rigorous, real-world testing. But even the most successful experiments fail to take hold when powerful forces are arrayed against them in principle, political dogma or both. Thus, it will be interesting to see which scheme prevails in Massachusetts' and Florida's dueling health-insurance models.
The Bay State got a two-year head start and promptly fell flat on its face. Its Commonwealth Care program was supposed to cost clients $200 a month and taxpayers $316 million the first year. But those numbers were right out of fantasyland.
Officials are projecting overruns of up to $4 billion over the first 10 years. Coverage costs soared from $200 to $325 before a single policy was sold, and the number of uninsured remained stubbornly high at about 300,000 despite a requirement that all residents buy insurance.
Fueling the fiscal and medical problems posed by this program was the legislature's refusal to back down on mandates, many of them inflicted by special-interest groups in the medical profession. As The Wall Street Journal explained in its May 21 editorial, "The New Big Dig," "low-cost private insurers continue to avoid the state because it imposes multiple and costly mandates on all policies."
Enter Florida, where Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is touting a new law that allows the sale of "stripped-down insurance policies," as The New York Times described them. Gov. Crist said the law "doesn't cost taxpayers a dime," a claim we'll believe when we see it. Nevertheless, Florida has the right formula. It allows insurers to compete by covering some treatments and excluding others, thus revealing the level of public demand for each of the state's 53 medical mandates.
Critics say Florida's strategy won't work because "low cost is not always sufficient to persuade consumers to buy policies that may still leave them with high out-of-pocket costs," the Times explained.
Thirteen states have tried so-called bare-bones policies; Connecticut, which is trying to shrink a relatively small population of uninsured people with its Charter Oak health plan, like Massachusetts lacked the wisdom and fortitude to curb its mandates.
The more pressing question is: If the Florida strategy has a meaningful appeal to the uninsured and doesn't overburden taxpayers, will lawmakers in Connecticut and elsewhere have the gumption to follow suit? Or will they continue to accede to the wishes of the special interests?
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Hmm . . . hmmm . . . gee, that's a tough one -- NOT!
Well, I'm from MA, and it follows as the day the night. I can't help wondering if there's a connection between MA's loosening restrictions on car insurance and the stupid health-insurance mandate. Would the same insurers be involved (I don't know much about which companies own smaller companies, though I'm pretty sure Blue Cross doesn't do car insurance!)? Just the speed with which they rammed that through smacks of payoff.
Ya, the states can be laboratories of social policy, except where liberal forces try to force an agenda. For example, same-sex marriage is almost certainly going to be exported from California to other states, and then court rulings will follow as to whether we have 50 state same-sex marriage. Realistically you can’t say the states are laboratories for testing things, because somebody will come along and want a 50 state policy on whatever the subject is. Same-sex marriage won’t be tested in Calif, it will be permanent. The legislature in Mass. didn’t even follow their constitutional rules to allow the people to vote on a marriage amendment there, so same-sex marriage is not an experiment, it is a permanent fixture there.
IMHO,
poobear
If it looks like B.S. and smells like B.S. it probably is B.S. but I'm just an old farm boy, whadda I know.
Well, one thing I know for sure is, that the less government is involved in a thing, the better that thing is.
The democrat governor here, Rod Goblowabich, did the only decent thing since he has been governor, he leaned on the insurance company and got them to call it a total loss.
In my state replacement cost covers what needs to be replaced. Not to side either way.
The solution to the health care crisis has nothing to do with insurance. It’s simply a matter of growing the supply by increasing the number of doctors.
Yeah, just like all those dumbasses living in tornado prone areas, mudslide and earthquake zones, or likely to have to winter ice storms.
“It’s simply a matter of growing the supply by increasing the number of doctors.”
That doesn’t seem to work since were talking about Union Shop rules. They all believe that they should make a certain salary when they finish their residencies. Experience means nothing to them. Same degree same price.
One big problem in MA is that you can’t just buy catastrophic health insurance and handle everything else yourself with an HSA. We just bought one of the higher deductible plans, and then funded an HSA. We didn’t bother with Prescription Drug Coverage, because it would have cost an additional $150 a month, and we don’t use that much in the way of meds. I think if folks were able to fashion their own personal health plan, based on their own family circumstances, it would be a great marketing tool for an insurance company.
My impression is that Florida is a pretty good health insurance market. The self employed can qualify for coverage without medical questions if they can document that they are legit businesses. This is huge.
In most states, there are problems with the self-employed, single market, which make everything else look bad. Some states, such as Maryland, have started pools sold my agents to deal with this.
Health insurance is a very fixable problem. However, most Democratic leaders want it blow up so that they can expand the welfare state into it.
DMV style healthcare will serve no one, except those political leaders looking for more money and power. Nothing like the literal power of life and death to build your base.
Florida Sets Pacemaker on “Perform”
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