In Massachusetts that shortage of doctors and health care providers exists - you said it does and that will be a granted. I didn't say that - the article did. I even posted the pertinent excerpt from the article. It wasn't me that said there was a shortage - it was the New York Times.
makes me wonder ... was the shortage of doctors and health care providers the case in Massachusetts prior to the Legislature passing this health care reform? I don't know.
The article answers your question...
The state ranks well above the national average in the per capita supply of all doctors and of primary care physicians.
You said:
However, couple this shortage with the Connector Board opening up the pool of people covered and lowering the cost is exactly what placed in into a deficit position...In this instance, in Massachusetts, it did matter who was in charge and those policy decision they made. In this case the statute was not the culprit, the sole culprit, rather those placed into positions of responsibility to see to the implementation and administration of some very complected problem(s).
First of all, you are using the word "complected" when I think you intend to say "complicated". "Complected" refers to a persons facial complexion, whereas "complicated" refers to something that is difficult to understand.
Secondly, the 'Connector Board' did not "open up the pool of people covered" as you say. From your post 11:
Interestingly, the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, the bureaucrats in charge of implementing the plan, decided that the universal individual mandate does not apply to everyone, but rather only those who can afford the premiums. Therefore, nearly one in five of the currently uninsured will be exempt from the law.
As you can see, they exempted many people from the insurance requirement. If the law were fully implemented, things would be even worse. So it is the statute itself that is the causing the problem, not the administrators or their policy decisions. There was no doctor shortage before the law was passed - the Massachusetts law is fully to blame for the shortage. It doesn't matter who the administrators in charge are in this case.
First, I apologize for the spelling error.
shortage ... the article is dated 5 April 2008. So the shortage exists today. If there is now any shortage (as discussed in the NYT article) of doctors it has to be due to their personal choice, limiting patients for many different reason, retirement, not wanting to practice in Massachusetts, not enough medical school students or other. The article does not explain fully.
If the article says "The state ranks well above the national average in the per capita supply of all doctors and of primary care physicians." ... then evidently there's no problem. No shortage. Enough doctors for all the citizens. We can't have it both ways. The point raised was: this bill was passed in April 2006 ... was there a shortage prior to passage in April 2006? You don't know and I don't know. That is a major complication and hurdle to overcome if it were in fact true. If not then other problems exist and complicate the implementation and administration. The NYT article only claims an imbalance because patients want to take care of 'long differed care'. A choice the patient or prospective patient made in the past and doctors must cope with now.
Using the NYT article only 340,00 of 600,000 uninsured have gotten coverage. That's a huge amount. I can only think the Legislature figured on 600,000 getting in a price "X" or did the data they used showed substantially less uninsured in the State. I don't have access to their data they had for deliberation on passing the bill, usually received in hearings, to determine their intent .
The problem at this point appears to be the Connector Board. Since the Connector Board in their various interpretations of the statute changed the meaning and possibly the intent of the statute. Specifically, in their determination of who is covered, they left people out (I misread that and I apologize). The Connector Board by this action actually caused a 'shrinking the pool' of recipients and one could infer a cost savings. The statute didn't leave people out, it appears clear in its wording of exactly who the Legislature intended to be covered by stating what the minimum level of health insurance was deemed to be.
If (1) there are less people covered than envisioned by the Legislature and the statute they wrote, and (2) the costs to the State are higher as a direct outcome of the Connector Board's decision to lower the price paid by those enrolled ... then The Connector Board in cutting the pool, thereby cutting it's income ... because of outside pressure. Result in budget deficits for the State.
Maybe it was the Democratically controlled Legislatures' intent that the statute be interpreted and administered in just this way. Then again, maybe not. The Legislature hasn't stepped in, so my guess is that they are okay with the decisions of the Connector Board.
Many laws shouldn't be written to begin with, however when they are there is an expectation that they will be administered and carried out by the appropriate authority. That authority bears the responsibility to administer them for the good of the people (or face some type of malfeasance charges) or go back to the Legislature and argue for their repeal. This admittedly does not occur to often and definetly not in this case.