Don't mimic the Massachusetts Way on health care reform [Romney Care is a failure]

The Washington Examiner ^ | 2009-07-06

[rabscuttle385]

In 2006, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was hailed as a visionary for signing one of the most expansive health reform bills in the country. "MassCare" aimed to expand health insurance, achieve universal coverage, and bring down costs through a complicated set of government controls and subsidies.

Just over three years later, many lawmakers are pointing to the Bay State as a model of success -- and pushing for similar policies at the national level.

The reform packages put forward by both the President and Democrats in Congress contain many of the essential elements of MassCare, including an individual mandate requiring most residents to purchase insurance; a "pay or play" rule forcing businesses to contribute to employee health insurance or pay a tax penalty; expansions of the public insurance system; and new restrictions on the insurance underwriting process.

But implementing the MassCare model nationally would be a mistake. While the percentage of uninsured Bay Staters has dropped to 2.6 percent (from about 6 percent), the state has never adequately addressed what causes people to go without insurance in the first place: the cost of health care.

In fact, a substantial portion of Massachusetts' newly insured still can't afford to purchase even basic medical services, and are effectively no better off than before the law's passage. Meanwhile, government health spending is spiraling out of control, adding to the state's already massive public debt.

The numbers are staggering. In seven of the last eight years, per-capita health spending in Massachusetts has increased faster than the national average, according to Alan Sager, a professor of health policy at Boston University.

Overall health insurance costs in Massachusetts are almost a third higher than the national average, with a basic plan costing almost $17,000 for a typical family of four. Nearly 30 percent of Massachusetts residents report that their medical costs have increased since MassCare's implementation.

It's a similar story for government healthcare spending. Public health insurance expenditures are expected to be up 42 percent, to roughly $595 million, this year compared to 2006.

The centerpiece of Massachusetts' 2006 health reform bill is Commonwealth Care, a government program that provides free and subsidized insurance plans to low- and moderate-income patients. It's spending has doubled in the last two years, jumping from $630 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2009.

Last year, rising costs lead Commonwealth Care officials to approve a 12 percent rate increase, meaning that basic insurance costs will cut even deeper into the incomes of most participating patients.

The national recession has brought added financial stress to MassCare. As State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill recently put it, the system "was expensive, even in good times. In tough times, it just doesn't seem doable. We're all still waiting for the savings."

And employers, now required to contribute to employee coverage or pay a tax penalty, are drowning under ballooning healthcare costs. Indeed, businesses that sponsor high-quality insurance plans have seen annual rate increases of 10 to 15 percent since MassCare's inception. This has made it harder and harder for businesses to stay in the state. And it's made the state less attractive for entrepreneurs and investors.

So what are Massachusetts residents getting for all that money? About 432,000 people previously without insurance are now covered, dropping the state uninsured rate to just 2.6 percent -- the lowest in the nation.

But many of the newly "insured" still can't access medical care. In fact, over the last 12 months, about 10 percent of state residents failed to fill a prescription, missed a payment on a medical bill, or skipped essential medical care.

The reason? As Harvard Medical School professor Dr. David Himmelstein explained, "Many of the policies out there have such huge copayments and deductibles that people can't afford care." In other words, many patients are nominally "insured," but they're spending so much on coverage that they can't afford the most basic medical services.

Indeed, the least expensive policy for a young family of four costs about $9,500 annually. But that family will have to pay a $3,500 deductible before many of their benefits kick in.

Because of these costs, 23 percent of the patient population still relies on emergency room (ER) care for basic medical treatments, the same percentage as before MassCare was implemented in April 2006.

Between 2005 and 2007, the number of ER visits increased seven percent, and total ER costs have gone up 17 percent over the last two years. Most disturbingly, patients on state-subsidized insurance use ER care 14 percent more than the average Bay Stater. Hospital officials have calculated that half of patients visiting the ER could have had their ailments addressed by a regular primary care doctor.

The bottom line is that expanding the Massachusetts model nationwide would be a disaster. It might reduce the number of Americans without insurance. But healthcare costs would become an even bigger problem, making medical care unaffordable for millions and resulting in denied care for many Americans.

Democrats eager to emulate the Bay State experiment on the national stage should think again. New government controls and spending won't do the trick. If we're serious about bringing down costs, we need to focus on patient-centered solutions to play a bigger role in our healthcare system.

[rabscuttle385]

The Mitt Romney Truth File. FR Keywords: romneytruthfile, slickwillard, mcromney Please tag all relevant threads with the aforementioned keywords. This can be a very high-volume ping list at times. To join the ping list: FReepmail rabscuttle385 with the subject line add  romneytruthfile. (Stop getting pings by sending the subject line drop romneytruthfile.)   Republican Commissar’s Warning: By joining this ping list, you may be subjected to the delusional rants and ramblings of Romneybots, of "moderate" Republicans, of pragmatic conservatives resigned to voting for the lesser of two Democrats, and of countless RNC shills who simply want to meet a new overlord.

[rabscuttle385]

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[Colofornian]

Scarchin

Searchin' for Scarchin, eh?

[mrsixpack36]

Sounds like RomneyCare is a big scam.

[rabscuttle385]

You know it. ;-)

[Diogenesis]

Mitt Romney demonstrates his “pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior),
and his need for admiration”as the carpetbagger-socialist-dictator-hyperliberal shapeshifter
gleefully installs ROMNEYCARE-1 (wihtout a vote -- the ROMNEY-way(TM).

"Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already
When Governor Mitt Romney instituted a universal healthcare plan for Massachusetts in 2006 he proclaimed it a conservative idea.
But has it worked? Has it been successful?
For a time, many thought it might but cracks in the system are already being seen.
These cracks are instructive as a lesson on how Obamacare will crash and burn just like Romneycare is now in the process of doing.

One of the early claims that helped push Romneycare through to law was the insistence by its supporters that Emergency Room visits would fall as more and more citizens became covered under healthcare insurance.
Since ER care is far more expensive than a doctor's care, it was thought that more people with insurance would ease the overcrowding of ERs as well as lower the overall costs of healthcare.
However, a flaw in this logic has been seen throughout the state. As more people became insured, more people demanded the care of doctors. These doctors became overloaded with patients and waiting lists for doctors got longer and longer.
As a result, 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...

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" Gov. Mitt Romney meets a medical marijuana patient—Oct. 6
Romney’s treatment of this poor sick man is sickening...

---

"Hospital patients 'left in agony'"
"Patients were allegedly left screaming in pain and drinking from flower vases on a nightmare hospital ward.
Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust over three years, a damning Healthcare Commission report said.
The watchdog's investigation found inadequately trained staff who were too few in number, junior doctors left alone in charge at night and patients left without food, drink or medication as their operations were repeatedly cancelled.
Patients were left in pain or forced to sit in soiled bedding for hours at a time and were not given their regular medication, the Commission heard.
Receptionists with no medical training were expected to assess patients coming in to A&E, some of whom needed urgent care.
Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, said there had been a "gross and terrible breach" of patients' trust and a "complete failure of leadership".
The Healthcare Commission's chairman Sir Ian Kennedy said the investigation followed concerns about a higher than normal death rate at the Trust, which senior managers could not explain.
He said: "The resulting report is a shocking story. Our report tells a story of appalling standards of care and chaotic systems for looking after patients. These are words I have not previously used in any report.
"There were inadequacies in almost every stage of caring for patients. There was no doubt that patients will have suffered and some of them will have died as a result."
Julie Bailey, 47, was so concerned about the care being given to her 86-year-old mother Bella at Stafford Hospital that she and her relatives slept in a chair at her bedside for eight weeks.
She said: "We saw patients drinking out of..."

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"Paramedics told: 'Let accident victims die if they want to' in new row over patient rights (UK)"
Health Service paramedics have been told not to resuscitate terminally-ill patients who register on a controversial new database to say they want to die.
It has been set up by the ambulance service in London for hundreds of people who have only a few months to live so that they may register their 'death wishes' in advance.
It is believed to be the first in the country, but other trusts around the country are expected to follow suit to comply with Government guidelines which state that patients' wishes should be taken into account, even at the point of death.
Patients' groups and doctors have welcomed the scheme, but it has met opposition from pro-life groups who say it violates the sanctity of life.
The system would come into play if a cancer patient, for example, was in serious pain and rang 999 for help to alleviate the suffering.
But if the paramedics arrived and the patient was close to death, he or she would not be resuscitated if such a request was registered on the database.
This would also be the case if a patient on the database was being transferred between hospitals, and had a heart attack.
Dominica Roberts from the Pro-Life Alliance said: 'This is very sad and very dangerous. It's another step along the slippery slope, at the bottom of which is euthanasia as we see in Holland. 'Paramedics should be there to save lives. They should not be there to let patients die. The medical profession should not agree with someone's belief that their life is worthless.'"

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"National Health Preview - The Massachusetts debacle, coming soon to your neighborhood."
"Three years ago, the former Massachusetts Governor had the inadvertent good sense to create the "universal" health-care program that the White House and Congress now want to inflict on the entire country.
It is proving to be instructive, as Mr. Romney's foresight previews what President Obama, Max Baucus, Ted Kennedy and Pete Stark are cooking up for everyone else.
In Massachusetts's latest crisis, Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues are starting to move down the path that government health plans always follow when spending collides with reality -- i.e., price controls.
As costs continue to rise, the inevitable results are coverage restrictions and waiting periods. 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.

What really whipped along RomneyCare were claims that health care would be less expensive if everyone were covered.
But reducing costs while increasing access are irreconcilable issues.
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."

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A Very Sick Health Plan; Bay State’s ‘Grand Experiment’ Fails [RomneyCare]
"The Daily News Record, Harrisonburg, Va. - 2009-03-31 "
"For folks increasingly leery of President Obama’s plan to radically overhaul America’s health-care system,
or 17 percent of the nation’s economy, all this could hardly have come at a better time —
that is, 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. Budgeted for Fiscal Year 2010 at $880 million,
or 7.3 percent more than a year ago, this plan, aimed at providing low- or no-cost health coverage to roughly 165,000 residents,
has caused Massachusetts’ overall expenditures on all health-related programs to jump an astounding 42 percent since 2006.

So what does Mr. Romney’s successor, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, propose as a remedy for these skyrocketing costs?
Well, whaddya think? The standard litany of prescriptions (no pun intended) — price controls and spending caps, for a start, and then, again predictably, waiting periods and limitations on coverage.
As in Europe and Canada, so too in Massachusetts. And, we feel certain, everyone from Mr. Romney to Mr. Patrick said, “It would never happen here.”
But then, such things are inevitable when best-laid plans, with all their monstrous costs, run smack-dab into fiscal reality.

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

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Thousands of patients with terminal cancer were dealt a blow last night after a decision was made to deny them life prolonging drugs.
The Government's rationing body said two drugs for advanced breast cancer and a rare form of stomach cancer were too expensive for the NHS.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is expected to confirm guidance in the next few weeks that will effectively ban their use.
The move comes despite a pledge by Nice to be more flexible in giving life-extending drugs
to terminally-ill cancer patients after a public outcry last year over 'death sentence' decisions."

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"Patients Forced To Wait Hours In Ambulances Parked Outside A&E Departments
"An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has found that thousands of 999 patients are being left to wait in ambulances in car parks and holding bays, or in hospital corridors – in some cases for more than five hours – before they can even join the queue for urgent treatment.

Experts warn that hospitals are deliberately delaying when they accept patients – or are diverting them to different sites –
in order to meet Government targets to treat people within fours hours of admitting them."

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"Cancer survivor confronts the health secretary on 62-day wait (UK Socialized Medicine)
WAITING times for cancer treatment need to be cut, the Scottish Government was told yesterday.
..Cancer experts later said that patients elsewhere in Europe would be "outraged" by having to wait two months to start treatment, with most being seen within two weeks.

The current target of 62 days from urgent referral by a doctor to starting treatment has still not been met in Scotland, despite that originally being the target figure for 2005."

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"Hospital patient so shocked at dirty ward she climbed out of bed to clean it herself
After 12 years cleaning care homes and private houses, no one is better qualified than Tereza Tosbell to say whether a room is spotless.
So hospital bosses should take heed of her opinion after she spent four days on a 'filthy' ward.
The mother-of-one said during her stay there was a single, brief visit from a cleaner who left dusty curtains, dirty bedframes and a messy floor.
Disgusted at the conditions, she grabbed the antibacterial fluid dispenser at the end of her bed and some hand towels from the bathroom.
She then set about cleaning her four-bed ward, at one point dropping to her hands and knees to sanitise the floor as she dragged her drip trolley behind her.
'It was shameful to see how sloppy the cleaners were while I was there. I was not prepared to put up with such conditions,'
said Miss Tosbell, a 48-year-old divorcee who was admitted to Colchester General Hospital in Essex with an abscess in her neck.."

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"Kidney cancer patients denied life-saving drugs by NHS rationing body NICE (UK Socialized Medicine)
Thousands of kidney cancer patients are likely to lose out on life-prolonging drugs.
The NHS rationing body, NICE, has confirmed a ban on three out of four new treatments.
.. 'Families will be denied time together and doctors will be unable to give patients the best treatment.'."

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"Girl, 3, has heart operation cancelled three times because of bed shortage (UK Socialized Medicine)
A three-year-old girl awaiting heart surgery has had her operation cancelled three times this month because of a shortage of beds.

... A hospital spokesman said that procedures would be reviewed, but the case highlights a growing problem of cancelled operations in the NHS.
More than 57,000 surgeries were postponed for non-clinical reasons, including a lack of beds, last year – 10 per cent more than the previous year."

[Steely Tom]

The Money Quote:

Because of these costs, 23 percent of the patient population still relies on emergency room (ER) care for basic medical treatments, the same percentage as before MassCare was implemented in April 2006.

[rabscuttle385]

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[ejonesie22]

But the democrats made it not work...

It was a “conservative solution”...

Mitt is perfect and handsome so it would work if he did it.

Yada yada yada...

[ExTexasRedhead]

SENIOR DEATH CARE; Yes, this could be you!

From an Email that a friend sent me:

Several years ago, my dear friend Geoff Faircloug, a Brit living in Leyland, England, had an ear ache. The doctor determined that it was a boil in the ear. After a week of awful pain the doctor agreed to lance the boil. Geoff, 77 years old never woke from the “elective surgery”. The boil ruptured, poisoning his entire system. Had he been 20 and a “productive worker” antibiotics and an aggressive treatment course would have been persued. But, at 77, the “cost outweighted the benefit”....TO THE STATE RUN MEDICAL SYSTEM....but not to me, his wife, his two children or 6 grandchildren!! I just received this bit of information and had to forward it....

SENIOR DEATH WARRANTS:

The actress Natasha Richardson died after falling skiing in Canada. It took eight hours to drive her to a hospital.
If Canada had our health care, she might be alive today.
In the United States , we have medical evacuation helicopters that would have gotten her to the hospital in 30 minutes.

In England anyone over 59 cannot receive heart repairs or stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed. Obama wants to have a health care system just like Canada’s and England’s. Even though he says he wants a unique American plan. Let just hope so, but you know how these politicians make promises and down the line they are broken. I got this today and am sending it on. If Obama’s plans in other areas don’t scare you, this should!

Please do not let Obama sign senior death warrants!!
Everybody that is on this mailing list is either a senior citizen, is getting close or knows somebody that is.
Most of you know by now that the Senate version (at least) of the “stimulus” Bill includes provisions for extensive rationing of health care for senior citizens. The author of this part of the bill, former senator and tax evader, Tom
Daschle was credited today by Bloomberg with the following statement:

Bloomberg: Daschle says “health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.”

If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that our esteemed Senators and Congressmen have their own
health care plan that is first dollar or very low co-pay which they are guaranteed the remainder of their lives
and are not subject to this new law if it passes.
Please use the power of the Internet to get this message out. Talk it up at the grassroots level.

We have an election coming up in one year and nine months, and we have the ability to address and reverse the dangerous direction the Obama administration and it allies have begun and in the interim, we can make their lives miserable. Lets do this!

[Jim Robinson]

Romney is Kennedy’s useful idiot.

[Sun]

Universal healthcare is one of the things I have against Romney, and he won’t even admit NOW that it was a mistake.

[Reagan Man]

RomneyCare = ObamaCare = socialized medicine.

[ellery]

Romney believes government exists to solve our problems — he doesn’t appear to grasp the concept that government *is* the problem. In a nutshell, that’s my biggest problem with him.

Meanwhile, even after all this, he’s still out there defending RomneyCare!

[freespirited]

While the percentage of uninsured Bay Staters has dropped to 2.6 percent (from about 6 percent), the state has never adequately addressed what causes people to go without insurance in the first place: the cost of health care.

Obama believes this too. But it just ain't that simple.

Millions of people CAN afford insurance and could get it from their employer or an HMO but CHOOSE not to do so. The reason is that they would rather spend the money on something else.

[byteback]

Romney has repeatedly said that a plan for one state will not work for the Nation and is against a National plan. Mitt is a Federalist and gets attacked by those who aren’t on his plan.

[ak267]

Dear Sarah,

Sounds like prime material for political commercials.

[SuziQ]

Our Romneycare plan started out at $8000, in 2007-08, for our family of four, with no Prescription Drug Coverage, because we didn't need nor want it. Last year,the cost went up about $1000, but we were also forced to sign up for the Drug Coverage which cost an additional $4000. We didn't USE that much in meds last year, and would have preferred to put a couple of thousand in an HSA, instead of having Drug Coverage, and that would have more than covered the costs, but we didn't have a choice.

Actually what we wanted was a high deductible catastrophic plan, using an HSA to cover basic procedures like Pap, Mammo, Colonoscopy, meds, etc, but we weren't allowed to get one like that, either.

[byteback]

I think she’ll be supporting him in 2012. She’s also a Federalist.