The people of Massachusetts do not expect that the national reform law will do much to lower costs in the state. They do, however, want the state to do something. About three quarters of the respondents said it was very important for the state to take major action. The survey did not ask what actions, because researchers feared that the public didn’t know about the various proposals on the table. Such remedies as global budgets and accountable care organizations are so much gobbledygook to ordinary folks that researchers believed their answers would not yield much useful information.
So goes Massachusetts, so goes the nation when it comes to health care. Journos covering presidential politics need to think about the lessons from the Bay State whenever the political discourse between Romney and Obama dissolves into a pissing contest over who is responsible for the kind of reform in Massachusetts that became the model for the national law. The point is health reform is the law of the land and has been law in Massachusetts for nearly six years. What works and does not work in Massachusetts is the discussion the public needs to hear.
Another day, another Chicken Little "Health Care Crisis" story from Trudy Lieberman -our resident commie "watchdog" who's made it abundantly clear that she believes that the interest of the "system" outweighs providing care to patients.
So now the problem is that doctors make too much money, huh?... Solution? Snatch their money, I suppose. No adverse consequences in that proposal, right?
I mean, if we just cut doctor's fees in half, all the doctors will still give the same care, right? They won't mind having their livelihoods ransacked in the name of the "system". We'll just take their money and use it pay the 15 GS-13's that will administer each policy provision. And all will be good in the realm.
These new commies honestly believe that putting the government into the "system" can somehow make better care AND cheaper care AND universal care appear out of thin air. The Government's Money Fairy just sprinkles a little Health Care Dust into the "system" and POOF! Free, universal, top-quality medical care for everybody!
I mean even Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Castro weren't this naive/stupid/crazy They each recognized the cost to society and to the economy of socialism. These new commies are neck-deep in crazy sauce.
#1 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Thu 27 Oct 2011 at 05:28 PM
I think Trudy makes a good point in arguing that the media should explore the disconnect between what the public thinks the main reasons are for the cost problem iand what policymakers and experts think (and remember there are different camps among policymakers and experts). Obviously the general public doesn't necessarily understand all the policy issues, so they may not understand the important role played by overuse of high-priced diagnostic and other services. But Americans generally do understand that they already are paying a lot out of pocket for health care, can't afford to pay a whole lot more, and that they aren't demanding lots of unnecessary services. The concept that consumer demand is driving the bulk of inappropriate and excessive services is not supported by the evidence. And there policymakers and experts divide between basically Democrats and Republicans. The latter believe consumers are mostly to blame and raising out of pocket costs will solve the problem. So that takes us back to the basic political divide over health care.
#2 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Thu 27 Oct 2011 at 08:33 PM
As goes MA, so will go Obamacare, and not only is the media looking the other way, so are all politicians including MA nationals. The latter should have been in the frontline during the national debate telling the truth about what's going on in MA. The MA plan has been on the skids since the first year it was implemented and has left many worse off than they were before the law.
How many is it OK to exploit in order to benefit a few?
Excerpts below are from another recent report on the MA plan that you can download at:
http://masscare.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/masshealthreforminpracticefinal.pdf
The Massachusetts Model of Health Reform in Practice
" . . . The reform has not addressed the health care crisis that most Massachusetts residents face, and that renders our entire health care system increasingly unaffordable."
AND
". . . Most concerning, the modest gains achieved by the reform have come at a high cost even after the state has successfully shifted many of these costs on
to federal taxpayers. The costs of the reform are widely acknowledged to be
unsustainable and the state has been forced to restrict benefits and shift
costs to residents, employers, and federal taxpayers as a consequence. This
may help explain the declining support for reform noted in recent years.
Moreover, the costs of the reform have not been born equitably, with low and
middle income individuals bearing a disproportionate share of the costs."
AND
". . . The Massachusetts plan has been successful only in nominally
increasing the numbers of individuals insured, but at a trade-off of making
almost everything else worse, including the insurance coverage itself. The
federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) used the Massachusetts model, and
experience with the implementation to date indicates that we can expect the
same or similar fundamental deficiencies, making unaffordable
under-insurance the new national standard. (Don McCanne)
#3 Posted by dianne, CJR on Fri 28 Oct 2011 at 09:23 PM