A Thinking Reed

Mass. to provide universal health care

Written by

Lee M.

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Massachusetts is getting ready to implement a plan with a novel approach aimed at providing universal health care:

“This is probably about as close as you can get to universal,” said Paul Ginsburg, an economist who is president of the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington. “It’s definitely going to be inspiring to other states about how there was this compromise. They found a way to get to a major expansion of coverage that people could agree on. For a conservative Republican, this is individual responsibility. For a Democrat, this is government helping those that need help.”

The bill, which resulted after months of wrangling between legislators and the governor, requires all Massachusetts residents to obtain health coverage by July 1, 2007.

Individuals who can afford private insurance will be penalized on their state income taxes if they do not buy it. Government subsidies to private insurance plans will enable more of the working poor to be able to afford insurance and will expand the number of children who are eligible for free coverage. And businesses with more than 10 workers that do not provide insurance will be assessed a fee of up to $295 per employee per year.

All told, the plan is projected to cover 515,000 uninsured people within three years, about 95 percent of the state’s uninsured population, legislators said.

“It is not a typical Massachusetts-Taxachusetts, oh just crazy liberal plan,” said Stuart H. Altman, dean of the Heller Graduate School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. “It isn’t that at all. It is a pretty moderate approach and that’s what’s impressive about it. It tried to borrow and blend a lot of different pieces.”

If this goes well it’ll obviously be a major feather in Gov. Romney’s cap when he runs for president in 2008. He clearly wants to present himself as a non-ideological pragmatist who can work with the other side to get things done (um, sort of like what George W. Bush said about himself when he ran for president the first time, but anyway…).

Comments

4 responses to “Mass. to provide universal health care”

  1. Joshie

    Not knowing the details, I have to say this is a big step in the right direction. If he promised to do a similar thing on a national level (and assuming some clod like Hillary Clinton gets the dem nomination) I might actually vote for him for president.

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  2. jack perry

    The idea itself isn’t new; requiring people to buy a plan if they can afford it, and subsidizing it if they can’t, is how the German health-care system works. (Or so I was told by a German on a Lufthansa flight.) I’ve read that they’re having real financial problems with it, too. (The source wasn’t too trustworthy, though.)

    I’m not sure all conservatives would like it. Mandating virtue is not the same as prohibiting vice, and conservatives distrust a government that requires virtuous living, even if they like the virtue. There was a famous example of this a few years ago, and I remember that this exact argument was used, but I can’t for the life of me recall what it was. However, I have seen conservatives criticize the German system, so I can’t be all wrong here.

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  3. Lee

    Joshie: what happened to your guy Bill Richardson? Haven’t heard much out of him lately.

    Jack: I think you might be able to argue that not having health insurance makes one a risk to the community (since, among other things, when one does get sick one will end up falling back on the community’s resources), thus mandating health insurance is justifiable for that reason, analogous to the justification for mandating insurance for drivers. If nothing else, they should prefer something like this to outright socialized medicine. I’m sure that wouldn’t please all conservatives, but it might help.

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  4. Joshie

    Bill’s out there, raising money, doing his thing, don’t worry about Bill!

    For me right now, universal healthcare is the most important issue. Even though I favor something closer to the UK or Canadian systems, this is a good start. If he committs to making this happen and the rest of what he wants to do isn’t too bad, I would vote for him over Richardson or anybody else for that matter, despite him being a Republican and a Mormon (which I know shouldn’t bother me, but somehow does).

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