Sunday, July 12, 2009

Something Rotten in the State of Massachussets-Let's Not Do It!

Regarding Government run HealthCare why isn't Washington looking at the fiasco that is now occurring in Massachusetts thanks to former Governor Mitt Romney? There's a Law in that state that mandates every individual to buy health insurance or face a penalty. Surprise of surprises, the young people have found out a way to circumvent the obligatory purchase of a product they DON"T WANT! The Wall Street Journal article's subtitle is "Massachusetts shows how ObamaCare would really work". So having this example of "something's rotten in the state of Massachusetts" why aren't our politicians gleaming some insights and lessons from this? The only thing that occurs to me is POWER AND MONEY. What else could it be? Read this editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

...Yet these mandates allow people to wait until they're sick, or just before they're about to incur major medical expenses, to buy insurance. This drives up costs for everyone else, which helps explain why small-group coverage in Massachusetts is so much more expensive than in most of the country. Mr. Romney argued -- as Democrats are arguing now -- that the individual mandate would make that problem disappear, since everyone is always supposed to be covered.

Well, the returns are rolling in, and a useful case study comes from the community-based health plan Harvard-Pilgrim. CEO Charlie Baker reports that his company has seen an "astonishing" uptick in people buying coverage for a few months at a time, running up high medical bills, and then dumping the policy after treatment is completed and paid for. Harvard-Pilgrim estimates that between April 2008 and March 2009, about 40% of its new enrollees stayed with it for fewer than five months and on average incurred about $2,400 per person in monthly medical expenses. That's about 600% higher than Harvard-Pilgrim would have otherwise expected. (READ AT WSJ).

1 comment:

Objectiveman said...

There is only one lesson Obama administration is going to learn from this episode - quickly nationalize the media companies and put an end to these irritating articles. The paternalistic state is not going to let go easily.

A correction:
The last paragraph has been repeated.