Posted on 04/05/2006 7:05:04 AM PDT by CSM
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 10:54 p.m. EDT Romney to Sign Mandatory Health Bill
BOSTON -- Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill Tuesday that would make Massachusetts the first state to require that all its citizens have some form of health insurance.
The plan — approved just 24 hours after the final details were released — would use a combination of financial incentives and penalties to dramatically expand access to health care over the next three years and extend coverage to the state's estimated 500,000 uninsured.
If all goes as planned, poor people will be offered free or heavily subsidized coverage; those who can afford insurance but refuse to get it will face increasing tax penalties until they obtain coverage; and those already insured will see a modest drop in their premiums.
The measure does not call for new taxes but would require businesses that do not offer insurance to pay a $295 annual fee per employee.
The cost was put at $316 million in the first year, and more than a $1 billion by the third year, with much of that money coming from federal reimbursements and existing state spending, officials said.
The House approved the bill on a 154-2 vote. The Senate endorsed it 37-0.
A final procedural vote is needed in both chambers of the Democratic-controlled legislature before the bill can head to the desk of Gov. Mitt Romney, a potential Republican candidate for president in 2008. Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said the governor would sign the bill but would make some changes that wouldn't "affect the main purpose of the bill."
Legislators praised the effort.
"It's only fitting that Massachusetts would set forward and produce the most comprehensive, all-encompassing health care reform bill in the country," said House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, a Democrat. "Do we know whether this is perfect or not? No, because it's never been done before."
The only other state to come close to the Massachusetts plan is Maine, which passed a law in 2003 to dramatically expand health care. That plan relies largely on voluntary compliance.
"What Massachusetts is doing, who they are covering, how they're crafting it, especially the individual requirement, that's all unique," said Laura Tobler, a health policy analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The plan hinges in part on two key sections: the $295-per-employee business assessment and a so-called "individual mandate," requiring every citizen who can afford it to obtain health insurance or face increasing tax penalties.
Liberals typically support employer mandates, while conservatives generally back individual responsibility.
"The novelty of what's happened in this building is that instead of saying, `Let's do neither,' leaders are saying, `Let's do both,'" said John McDonough of Health Care for All. "This will have a ripple effect across the country."
The state's poorest — single adults making $9,500 or less a year — will have access to health coverage with no premiums or deductibles.
Those living at up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $48,000 for a family of three, will be able to get health coverage on a sliding scale, also with no deductibles.
The vast majority of Massachusetts residents who are already insured could see a modest easing of their premiums.
Individuals deemed able but unwilling to purchase health care could face fines of more than $1,000 a year by the state if they don't get insurance.
Romney pushed vigorously for the individual mandate and called the legislation "something historic, truly landmark, a once-in-a-generation opportunity."
One goal of the bill is to protect $385 million pledged by the federal government over each of the next two years if the state can show it is on a path to reducing its number of uninsured.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has threatened to withhold the money if the state does not have a plan up and running by July 1.
Can you imagine what it would be like if Republican meant "conservative"?
The number of actual conservative Republicans is tiny. I mean in the politician class; the hoi polloi has plenty of conservative Republicans.
It is coming your way too Jeff.
This is Healthy People 2010.
Here is the Idaho foreshadowing:
(snip)
>>>One example of that that is a good example is the Idaho -- we can talk about that later. There is a plan that has already been produced by the state of Idaho that was actually choreographed by local health departments which came together -- it's a county system -- and have already looked at Healthy People 2010, using the Leading Health Indicators to craft their own plan, which is now the state plan for Idaho. But that just ties in with the whole idea.
One of the ways that we will be able to apply Healthy People 2010 at the local level is by focusing on the Leading Indicators. That's another theme that seems to be coming out here today -- that if we can focus on those and use those as a framework of sorts, we will be able to mesh local plans and state plans into HP2010.<<<<
(snip)
http://www.healthypeople.gov/Implementation/Council/council9-12-00/panel_translating.htm
Looks like conservatives are learning about Mitt Romney.
So let me get this straight.
Employers will be forced to pay a $295 "fee" per employee but it is not a tax.
People who opt not to purchase health insurance will be required to do so.
The poor will be given health insurance with no premium or no deductible.
No one will have to pay deductibles
And everyone who currently pays for insurance will see a reduction in premiums.
Wow that is fantastic! I now need to see the they can repeal the laws of Physics. I need to get my perpetual motion machine going again.......
Nice wealth redistribution plan being shoved up the wazoo of the middle-class trying to climb upwards, ain't it?
Socialists in Republican sheeps' clothing like Mitt Romney are worse than Democrats. Maybe he can run as Hillary's VP.
Romney is as much Presidential material as your latest post-coffee donation to the john.
Old style, small government conservatism died the day George Bush decided to embrace the role of world policeman.
"Working is for Chumps." - Bart Simpson
Bart Simpson for Massachusetts Governor!
I will look into this...I know if it comes to a vote here it will be soundly defeated. If people are aware their county officials are drifting this way, they will either change, be run out of office.
This is precisely why the government continues to take a greater roll.
Ah....yes....but did you vote for him in 2004? If so, your anger was meaningless.
So MA is the first state to adopt socialism. No shocker there. If Romney has any brains he won't bother putting his name up for president...he just signed away any chance right here.
Next comes Ohio
SB 68, Universal Health Care paid for by business taxes...
I don't like medical spending accounts. The problem is that it's a "Use It or Lose It" system. If I gaze into my crystal ball incorrectly and put too much into my account, I lose it at the end of the year. My question has always been- who gets that money? No HR person has ever been able to answer that question.
It costs the health care system 3 times the normal rate when they have to fight off all those ridiculous suits for every little reaction some patient has when the overall use of most approved drugs greatly benefits the majority.
Romney has been the media's choice for a Republican presidential candidate.
America really hasn't had small government conservatism since Calvin Coolidge. And we haven't had a POTUS whose had any success at limiting government since Ronald Reagan. Ever since the end of WWII, the US has been the policeman to the world. For he most part, I support the Bush foreign policy agenda and his prosecution of the WOT. This is no time to show weakness aginst Islamic jihad.
Its Bush`s liberal spending habits and his domestic policy agenda that has expanded the federal bureaucracy to levels never seen before, that I see as undermining the conservative idea of limited government. And the Bush promotion of a liberal immigration reform doesn't help to advance the conservative agenda either.
You hear all of the proposals for sugar and fat taxes? And laws mandating location restrictions for vending machines? You think seatbelt and helmet laws are bad now? What do you think will happen to all these things when you have Hillarycare (or Hillarycare lite, aka Romneycare)? Your government mandated permitted activities list will arrive in the mail shortly. Personal responsibility is so passe - let the government assist you, citizen.
There's a LONGER version? How do people with jobs find the time to read this?
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