ObamaCare: A National Version of RomneyCare
Before the country adopts a similar plan, Americans should know three things about the failing Massachusetts system.
The details of Congress’ health care “reform” legislation are finally coming into focus, and it’s not a pretty picture. Congress is essentially proposing a national version of the failing Massachusetts system.
In 2006, Massachusetts adopted a health care plan which included an individual mandate requiring residents to purchase state-approved health insurance, new regulations on insurance companies specifying who they must cover and what benefits they must provide, and a government-subsidized “public option” for low-income residents. Supporters promised a utopia of “universal coverage” which would save money while improving quality of care. However, the exact opposite has occurred — health costs in Massachusetts have skyrocketed, while patient care has suffered.
Before we adopt a similar plan at the national level, Americans should know three things about the Massachusetts plan.
1) Massachusetts’ system of mandatory insurance drives up costs and violates individual rights.
Under any system of mandatory insurance, the government must necessarily specify what constitutes an “acceptable” insurance plan. Hence, this creates a giant magnet for special interest groups seeking to have their pet benefits included in the required package.
Massachusetts residents are thus required to purchase benefits they may neither need nor want, such as in vitro fertilization, chiropractor services, and autism treatment — raising insurance costs for everyone to reward a few with sufficient political “pull.” In aggregate, such mandated benefits have increased the costs of health insurance in Massachusetts by up to 50%.
Since 2006, providers have successfully lobbied to include 16 new benefits in the mandatory package (including lay midwives, orthotics, and drug-abuse treatment), and the state legislature is considering 70 more. In the past three years, insurance premiums in Massachusetts have increased by 8-10% each year, nearly twice the national average.
Mandatory insurance thus violates the individual’s right to spend his own money according to his judgment for his benefit. Instead, he much choose from a limited set of insurance plans on terms set by lobbyists and bureaucrats, rather than based on a rational assessment of his needs.
2) “Coverage” is not the same as actual medical care.
Supporters of the Massachusetts plan frequently claim that it is a success because 98% of the state’s residents are now “covered.” But this is misleading, because it conflates theoretical “coverage” with actual medical care. In fact, access to medical care has worsened for many Massachusetts residents.
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Paul Hsieh, MD, practices in the south Denver metro area. He is co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (MD).
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53 Comments
1. Marc Malone:Once it’s passed, it grows out of control. The Camel’s nose in the tent. The Libs just keep thinking of new things to spend the money on for healthcare. Gotta have this and that and the other. The money just falls from the sky.
“Animal Farm”
Nov 2, 2009 - 1:43 am 2. Canard:Just remember this: the cost of the insurance that you are required to pay for will be driven up by the inclusion of every single medical or psychological right that every single crazy person with a lawyer can think of.
For example, I can’t wait until, just so that I can get a check-up, I have to help fund “insurance” that is required by law to include sex change surgery. Which, of course, someone out there is already scheming to get included in the mandatory insurance plan as a guaranteed right.
On the other had, it will be good to know that the coverage is there for me, just in case, ya know.
Nov 2, 2009 - 3:13 am 3. John "birther" Samford:“Mandatory insurance thus violates the individual’s right to spend his own money according to his judgment for his benefit.”
What are you talking about? Show me where this “right” appears in the Constitution. IIRC, the right of a State to force it’s citizens to buy something was upheld by the USSC back when Insurance Companies bribed enough politicians to get mandatory automobile insurance forced down everybody’s throat.
Nov 2, 2009 - 4:00 am 4. Pedrosito:60’s or 70’s IIRC. It made the insurance companies a LOT of money, but it DID NOT reduce the premiums of anyone, which is what the politicians claimed it would do.
Insurance is a bigger scam then anything Madeoff thought up. A massive con game, although a successful one.
No, they way to combat the Universal Health care scam is thru political judo. If the Federal government can force citizens to buy something, a doubtful point given the 10th amendment and the fact that the States have already claimed that right, then Conservatives need to promise to use those same legal principals to force the left to but something they don’t like. Such as handguns. Better yet, assault rifles.
What goes around comes around and the Left needs to be reminded that they won’t hold ALL the marbles forever. I think tomorrow will give them a clue.
We will see if Conservatives can get enough voters out to offset the Left’s voting fraud machine.
This is a primary reason Romney will not be the GOP nominee in 2012. He has a failed program to run on.
Nov 2, 2009 - 4:07 am 5. newsom:We may be able to circumvent socialized medicine on religous grounds. When one gives the government power over one’s life and death, one is making an idol of government.
Nov 2, 2009 - 4:45 am 6. bandit:Any ideas?
The Massachusetts Medical Society reports that 40% of family practice doctors and 56% of internal medicine physicians no longer accept new patients — “the highest percentages of primary care practices closed to new patients … ever recorded.”
Think of this in light of Boston being the city where more physicians receive training than anywhere in the country. This is where the cataclysm of gov’t run healthcare is going to hit – who’s going to go to 4 yrs undergrad, med school and an internship to become a gov’t employee? there are some who will but when you hear the lunacy about forcing specialists to become pcp’s and gp’s and this is what you’re going to get. The gov’t always thinks they can repeal the law of supply and demand – how’s that working out?
Nov 2, 2009 - 5:21 am 7. Bilgeman:Dr. Hsieh:
“Advocates of government-run health care like to claim that it is morally superior because it “doesn’t put a price on human life.” But when the government sets an annual spending cap for each patient, then that’s exactly what it will be doing.
Such rationing is the dead end of the Massachusetts plan, and it will be the dead end of ObamaCare.”
Nope, it will dead-end, but it won’t be in rationing. It will be in bankruptcy.
Show me the politicians who have the gumption to tell the electorate that they are going to cut health-care benefits.
They won’t get elected.
No, because they cannot “put a price on human life”, and show the moral courage to inform the constituency that, no matter how much of their own…and other people’s…money they spend, they are still going to die, they will add and increase the coverage benefits far beyond the ability of the electorate to pay for it.
I take a pretty cynical view of most things political, and to my eye, the Socialist Utopiacare promoters have been selling this to the public by pointing out the tragedy of individuals going bankrupt for their health care.
But what hasn’t been highlighted is that under Obamacare, you will go bankrupt paying for someone ELSE’S health care.
And as I said above, in the end it won’t make much difference, since you’ll be just as dead.
Nov 2, 2009 - 5:33 am 8. BC:Well, there seems to be confusion here (as usual). I live in Massachusetts and:
A) One of its options was a basic-basic health plan for individuals that was much cheaper than any option available before then. Massachusetts already had the highest cost medical care prior to that and the plan immediately made getting health care coverage cheaper despite widespread and idiotic misreadings of statistical data.
B) The “mandatory” bit involves showing proof at tax time for being enrolled in some approved plan for the tax year. There was a scaled penalty for not being enrolled or for being enrolled for only part of the year. This targeted all the uninsured people getting defacto free care, especially at emergency rooms, even when they could afford health insurance. But that “free care” was actually costly and it was absorbed into the system.
C) Massachusetts now has the lowest insured rate of any state.
D) Massachusetts, though, is just one state and doesn’t have the resources to deal with the systemic flaws and misbehavior that has been relentlessly driving up health care costs nationwide. A federal program could be able to do this *if* properly implemented.
Nov 2, 2009 - 5:40 am 9. seanmahair:Let’s be real clear here. MA was going to adopt a universal health care plan with or without the governors endorsement. Given what he had to work with and the people ( the late Kennedy) he had to work around I’m surprised he managed to reign it in as well as he did.
People seem to forget that public servants (those who actually know what that means) serve at the behest of their constituents. They do what the public wants, within legal bounds.
Hence why we have the leaders we have. The people who voted for them were either too stupid to read, listen to or watch what the candidates had to say or are so degenerate, dishonest and lazy that they wanted this group of ner’do wells in office. Either way this is OUR fault collectively.
“We have met the enemy and he is us”. Pogo
Nov 2, 2009 - 5:43 am 10. K T Cat:I think you’re post reveals life and strength in ths US political system. I linked to it this morning and found some other examples as well. The voices of reason still have a chance to win this battle.
Thanks for posting this.
Nov 2, 2009 - 5:47 am 11. Jared Rhoads:Good analysis and critique.
The Massachusetts “experiment” should absolutely not be used as a model for national reform. As badly as it has failed here in the Bay state, it would be even worse nationwide–not better. The effects would be particularly visible in terms of cost and access to care.
Two points: 1) Massachusetts gets a hefty federal subsidy to carry on this charade. Who would subsidize us as a nation if this were implemented everywhere? And 2) Massachusetts has the highest number of physicians per capita of any state in the nation, yet under this plan we now have waits and access-related issues. How much worse would the effects be in the other 49 states? Idaho and Mississippi have fewer than half as many physicians per capita as we do here.
Nov 2, 2009 - 6:26 am 12. Paul:If it’s so good, then why is it forced? If there are saving to be had, why not start a company, pass those saving on, and have a profit? And, what were the other actors doing, twiddling their thumbs?
Why has Hawaii’s, Tennessee, Maine systems collapsed? Not enough Harvard grads?
Where does the government get off making criminals? What, are we all good little socialist serfs now?
Romney did this because he is an unimaginative, politically and historical ignorant liberal businessman that drippingly desperately wanted a hook to hang his( and his fathers, and his church’s) Presidential aspirations upon. Hard to believe, but true. He couldn’t get out of the state fast enough since then.
He’s a loser. He done. Fugehendabout him. In the mean time, we in Massachusetts watch the medical capital erode, and this innovative industry relocate to more hospitable climes, just like many other industries.
Nov 2, 2009 - 6:39 am 13. vivo:Shortage of doctors?
Bring more doctors.
Nov 2, 2009 - 6:45 am 14. Dave K.:YES! Shun the infidel!
Mitt Romney doesn’t worship the same Jesus we do!
He wants healthcare for the poor ones and we all know that Jesus hated poor people!
Hey, ho! RINOs have to go!
Hey, ho! RINOs have to go!
Hey, ho! RINOs have to go!
Expunge the moderate Republicans, it’s the only way!
I love you guys.
Nov 2, 2009 - 7:14 am 15. maplenut:Fellow patriots – Just a few bullets of info that I have gathered from MA.
* The Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy (the Division) annually produces a report identifying employers with 50 or more employees receiving health services through publicly subsidized programs.
**********************
* Aliens with Special Status (AWSS) and Commonwealth Care FAQs and Resources
June 30, 2009.
Q: Why would Commonwealth Care benefits end for certain non-citizens? (ed. Yup, they ARE still being covered when determined “eligible” by a MassHealth Enrollment Center.[MEC])
* The following questions/scenarios should be referred to a MEC:
Nov 2, 2009 - 7:18 am 16. JED:This plan, that plan, any given plan that turns the responsibility of heath care from the individual to some big brother organization is a dodge from one’s primary responsibility to oneself. “Help me” is the cry, and “help yourself first” is the reply.
Nov 2, 2009 - 7:24 am 17. jharp:The two words, “government run” should be scary enough, unless talking about national security. “Corporate interests” are not empathetic. The great health polarizing divide in this country today seems to be between In Government We Trust, and In Corporations We Trust. The coin of the realm says “In God We Trust” and might add “watch out for your own property.”
The shortage of doctors claim is ludicrous.
Do you honestly believe that the United States, the greatest country the world has ever known, can’t produce more doctors?
Nov 2, 2009 - 7:39 am 18. goy:Looks like someone has been reading my past articles on this subject. Good. A little late though.
The problems with the MA system are well known. Promoting them to the federal level will only amplify them by several orders of magnitude, putting the final nail in the coffin of this financially and morally bankrupt Republic.
Nov 2, 2009 - 8:20 am 19. GLASS:bandit
look north to find out how bad finding a doctor can be. Here it is almost 100% doctors not accepting new patients. On my way to work I pass a walk in clinic and it’s pathetic to see people standing out in the cold and rain just to see a doctor. I live in a small town where seeing a doctor means standing in line or spending several hours waiting in the emergency room of the local hospital. The cities are even worse.
I have often heard the complaints about insurance companies running the system and dictating coverage. Well let me say this, better them than government where you have no recourse. It is far better to have a buffer, your local politician, between you and any system than a government system with no recourse and controlled by the unions. Up here it’s a toss up who’s the biggest detriment to the health care system, government or unions, take your pick.
Universal health care overall is a good thing, not a bad thing. It becomes bad when there is no choice, very bad, keep the private option open, wide open, and clearly accessible. Without it public care slips to the lowest level possible, just compare it to a government run anything and you get the idea. You become the slave to their system and they become the controlling master, do as your told and shut up. We, by the way, do not have the private option and it’s the private option that keeps them honest.
Nov 2, 2009 - 8:32 am 20. Dave K.:goy@18:
“Looks like someone has been reading my past articles on this subject. Good. A little late though.”
PRO TIP:
Nobody reads your stupid blog.
And spamming comment threads for ad revenue is not only stupid, but also tacky.
“OMG! Look at my blog that I wrote by myself where I predicted the future! I’m such an Internet Nostradamus, you guys!”
Nov 2, 2009 - 8:39 am 21. goy:- And spamming comment threads for ad revenue…
Huh. Funny. I don’t see any ads on my blog. Guess that makes you not much of a “PRO’ and pretty much a moron.
And anyone who couldn’t predict where all this was heading three years ago simply wasn’t paying attention, spud.
Nov 2, 2009 - 9:28 am 22. Bilgeman:#8 BC:
“D) Massachusetts, though, is just one state and doesn’t have the resources to deal with the systemic flaws and misbehavior that has been relentlessly driving up health care costs nationwide. A federal program could be able to do this *if* properly implemented.”
Look, tell me something. If a state like Massachusetts, of small land area and population, blessed as it is with a number of hospitals and doctors in private practice, cannot meet its’ own needs via Utopiacare, then what makes anyone think that the nation as a whole can swing it?
If you have a bucket of raw sewage and pour it into a drinking water well, what have you accomplished, (aside from now having an empty bucket)?
Although I’m often of a contrary opinion, I don’t think Massholes are all that much different in their misbehavior, when it comes to health care, as any other Americans.
As far as I can see, the only benefit to Mass, Maine, Tennessee and Hawaii in Obamacare is to have the costs of their own failed or failing experiments foisted off on the rest of the states.
And this is incredibly short-sighted when you consider that while you may be getting some offset for Mass’ program, you’re going to be shelling out for California’s aches and pains for example.
I’m lead-pipe certain that Massachusettsians(?) won’t be “down” with THAT.
Back to my sewage-in-the-well analogy, if you then dip the now-empty bucket into the well and hoist it up, does that make the contents any safer or more palatable to drink?
Nov 2, 2009 - 9:45 am 23. Tcobb:Somehow this all reminds me of Orwell’s 1984 where the people were told that their chocolate ration was being “increased” to 10 grams per week, whereas previously it had been 12 grams per week.
Promises made which cannot be kept and are not intended to be kept traditionally have been given the label of “lies.” Today we just call it “hope and change,” or at least some of us do. I just call it bulls**t.
Nov 2, 2009 - 10:19 am 24. Roark:Romney is an empty suit with a nice haircut. He’s the RINO GOP version of Obama; all BS and no substance or viable values.
Nov 2, 2009 - 10:44 am 25. Dwight:Hsieh wrote, “Suppose your annual allotment was $5,000 and you had already spent $4,500 that year. You then see your doctor for a severe headache. He examines you and says, “No, Bill, you don’t need a $1000 MRI scan of your brain. Just take two Tylenol and call me in the morning.”
Can you be 100% sure that he’s giving you unbiased medical advice?”
This scenario is probably a decent one to judge some of the possible ways to get health care. Is the MRI supposed to be proscribed the first time (in order to cover the Doctor’s ass against a lawsuit) after a few days, after a few weeks, when? The idea is not to call for the MRI immediately, but to wait long enough so that x% of the patients feel better without it.
I have been in an HMO in Mass. for forty years and haven’t noticed any huge differences after the Romney plan went in. Yeah, the state is broke, but it always is during a recession. Ten years ago, my HMO had to figure out how to raise fees and cut costs because they were going broke. They managed to do so by raising the copay from $5 to $15 using nurse practitioners a lot more, and raising the yearly fees to me and my employer but it all worked out, more or less.
Look, some people want the kind of attention that is just not affordable and need to be told that they are OK for the 400th time.
At least Romney and the Dem legislature worked together and this is the best they could come up with. It seems more productive than all the bs posturing I hear much of the time.
I will agree that it remains a valid question as to whether the Mass. will actually work, but it does get acknowledged as the best one out there.
Nov 2, 2009 - 11:15 am 26. BC:To Bilgeman: the doctor shortage was caused by self-serving, short-sighted, AMA-provoked idiocy a back in the 80’s. Note especially what happened to opening new medical schools in the “New Medical School” section about 2/3rds into the article. There is *so* much to the health care crisis that is not at all being explained or covered properly.
Nov 2, 2009 - 11:24 am 27. Peter the Bubblehead:25. Dwight wrote:
I will agree that it remains a valid question as to whether the Mass. will actually work, but it does get acknowledged as the best one out there.
Peter writes: As a resident of MA, please tell me WHO exactly acknowledges the MA system is the best one? Because all I know is for the four months I was working what was considered a ‘temp to hire’ position with no benefits, I nearly went bankrupt trying to pay for the insurance MA REQUIRED I have for myself and my family BY LAW.
Thank God (can I say that without offending all the Freedom From Religion people?) when I finally was hired on full time with benefits the health care was included, except now The Won, Nazi Pelousy and Reed want to tax me even more on those benefits because they cover everything MA tells me I’m required to cover, what they refer to as a ‘Cadillac’ policy, like I have a choice???
Nov 2, 2009 - 11:29 am 28. Marc Malone:#8 BC – So… you’re from MA? That explains soooo much! It’s not working there because of the flaws in the rest of the country? All we have to do is expand it, and everything will be hunky-dory? WTH?
When you’re testing something, you do it on a small scale to see if it works, before implementing it on a large scale. If it doesn’t work, you say, “Whew, I’m glad we didn’t commit to THAT!” You don’t say, “It failed because we didn’t make it big enough.”
Funny thing is, that’s what the International Socialists (Communists) say, “It’ll work. We just need to spread it to all the world and it’ll work. It only failed because we didn’t try it all around the world at once.”
To parody Galileo, “It still DOESN’T move.”
#13 vivo – Bring more doctors? How? Conscript them? Becoming a doctor is HARD! First, you have to have an IQ of 140+, about 3% of the population. Then you have truly rigorous studies. I understand it’s about 5,000 pages a week of technical reading, in addition to classes. (Think 2.5 House Healthcare bills every week.) It is horrendously expensive, something like 200k-500k. You have to be MOTIVATED! Every time a doctor treats a Medicare/Medicaid patient, he LOSES money. How you gonna get more doctors, vivo?
Not just that, but the demand for services goes up, because someone else is paying for it. People start seeing a doctor for every little thing. That’s the problem with the platinum health insurance plans, now. Lots of unnecessary visits and tests, because “it’s covered”.
Nov 2, 2009 - 11:30 am 29. BC:More on the doctor shortage.
Nov 2, 2009 - 11:34 am 30. PAthena:#19 What #19 means by “up north” is Canada. Among other problems in Canada, the law gives no incentives for people to go into medicine. The same is true for Massachusetts. The “Obamacare” includes provisions for racial discrimination for admission to medical school, etc., not the way to get the best doctors and nurses. These laws treat doctors and nurses as slaves.
Nov 2, 2009 - 11:41 am 31. Marc Malone:#3 Samford – Auto insurance is not the same as health insurance. If you want to drive, you have to pass a test; get a license. Because it’s DANGEROUS! You are required to have minimal insurance in case you hurt someone else, or damage someone else’s property. This is a protection of others’ rights to life and property. When your rights overlap others’ rights, the government sets the rules for interaction. Also, as long as you post a bond to cover these possiblities, you can get out of having to buy auto insurance.
This is not true of health insurance. If you are young and healthy, you don’t really need anything but catastrophic health insurance. Maybe not even that, depending on your wealth. You are not uninsured. You are self-insured. But they’ll fine you, anyway. They will seize your wealth, in order to force you to subsidize the system.
This is just another Ponzi scheme. Get the youth enrolled. Force them to buy a product they neither need or want, in order to get them to subsidize the purchases of older, less healthy people. Just like SS/Medicare. Then, it will rage out of control.
“Government, like fire, is a useful tool, and a terrible master.” – G. Washington
Nov 2, 2009 - 11:44 am 32. Poor Citizen:I too worry that we will get a system that is less than what we deserve. However, with costs rising about forty percent and less and less people able to get coverage if we do nothing…..then my logic tells me that doing nothing is not a viable option either. So, lets get some health care reform..not the 75 percent the republicans want and not the 100 percent the democrats want, lets make it about 85 percent then we can dress it up a bit later on..once the quacks stop complaing about the wolf that never showed up to eat the sheep. Agreed? I didn’t think so…
Nov 2, 2009 - 11:50 am 33. Marc Malone:#26 BC – Good links. This reinforces what I’ve said in other threads. The AMA is a government created monopoly. They did this in 1849. We have a single provider system, so people think the answer is a single-payer system. Essentially, government is creating the demand for more government. Break the monopoly, and you solve much of the problem.
Nov 2, 2009 - 11:57 am 34. l.a.guy:This is not true of health insurance. If you are young and healthy, you don’t really need anything but catastrophic health insurance.”
Yes, but not everyone does get catastrophic health insurance. So when a healthy 21 year-old gets is in an automobile accident, dropped off at a hospital emergency room and racks up a $200,000 bill we all have to pay. Since the hospitals are legally (and morally) compelled to treat these people, I think it’s fair to insist on everyone to getting catastrophic health insurance.
Nov 2, 2009 - 12:55 pm 35. Dave K.:Roark@24:
“Romney is an empty suit with a nice haircut. He’s the RINO GOP version of Obama; all BS and no substance or viable values.”
And he doesn’t worship Jesus exactly the same way you do!!!
Nov 2, 2009 - 1:22 pm 36. goy:Heretic!!
Purge the infidel!
EXTERMINATE!!!
EXTERMINATE!!!
EXTERMINATE!!!
- … lets get some health care reform..not the 75 percent the republicans want and not the 100 percent the democrats want…
So you’re saying we have a (false) choice between the GOP’s far-left ’solution’ and the Dems’ far-far-left ’solution’. Not very creative.
The one and ONLY critical facet of health care right now is that government meddling has pushed the cost of routine care to increase at rates far exceeding that of inflation, and it’s gotten harder to afford. For decades. This started with Medicare, continued with HMOs and continued further with tax-incentives for group comprehensive employee entitlements for ‘coverage’. No one bothers to acknowledge this – they simply want to argue over the next step: socialized medicine.
The situation created by government meddling has resulted in insurance companies (and government, in its capacity as Medicare insurance company) now having complete control over the price of health care – the consumer no longer has any influence whatsoever over prices. This is why costs have skyrocketed – i.e., the free market for health care has been destroyed and prices have been allowed to increase with none of the downward pressure that keeps other routine costs of living relatively affordable.
You won’t fix the health care problem created by government meddling with more government meddling. That’s literally insane.
Restore the free market for health care, allow the costs of routine care to come back into equilibrium through consumer choice and you will have resolved the problem. The AMA won’t allow this because it will force a market-driven adjustment to physicians’ wages – just like all other sectors’ wages have been adjusted. The insurance company lobby won’t allow this because of the enormous profits they enjoy – leverage small margins over an enormous scale. Politicians won’t allow this because the ALL – GOP an Dem – want to seize control over more of the economy and, with it, the cash flow it produces.
Black is not white. Health insurance is not health care. Paying for a routine cost of living using insurance is insanity.
Nov 2, 2009 - 1:34 pm 37. Sharpshooter:Imagine how much your car insurance would be if all the folks with eight DUIs and six at-fault accidents were let into the same, single pool.
Now, imagine how it would shift with not only accidents, but regular maintenance covered (poor life style choices). Add to that you HAVE to cover all the 1960’s model beaters.
Oh, and mandatory car insurance only covers damage YOU do to SOMEONE ELSE (liability, not comprehensive).
Nov 2, 2009 - 2:03 pm 38. Gerry:@13 – Vivo.
Do what Chavez did in Venezuela.
Import Cuban doctors. This administration would just jump at the chance for cheap doctors.
One problem. As in Venezuela they will probably defect!!!!!
Nov 2, 2009 - 3:35 pm 39. Conservative Samizdat:We shouldn’t be calling this RomneyCare but DemCare because it was the MA democratic legislature that made changes and additions to Mitt’s Healthcare that Mitt didn’t want or support. Moreover, Mitt Romney tried to veto the Democratic version of his bill but the Democrats had enough votes to nullify Mitt’s veto.
What the Democrats passed was not what Mitt Romney wanted.
The REAL lesson here is that never, ever, let democrats near health care reform because they will mess it up.
It doesn’t matter how good the original health care proposal and it doesn’t matter who proposed it. Once the original proposal through a democratically controlled congress, it becomes a bad plan due to all the additions and changes the democrats made to the original plan.
The MA health care crisis isn’t Mitt’s fault. Its the democratic legislature’s fault.
Nov 2, 2009 - 6:04 pm 40. Holdfast:“Access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare”
-McLachlin, CJC
-That’s the Liberal-appointed Chief Justice of Canada (i.e. the chief justice on the Supreme Court of Canada).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverley_McLachlin
Nov 2, 2009 - 6:20 pm 41. myth buster:17. Sure, we could produce more doctors, but to do so, you have to make becoming a doctor more rewarding, not less. That means you have to increase the cost of health care AND enact tort reform, not to mention do something about Medical School tuition. It’s the Law of Demand- if you want to consume more of something than producers are willing to produce at the current price, the price will rise until a combination of consumers being priced out of the market and more producers or increased output from the existing producers brings the market back into balance. If there aren’t enough doctors with doctors being paid $300,000/year, then maybe we need to pay doctors $500,000 or $1 million/year to induce more people to become doctors.
Nov 2, 2009 - 6:52 pm 42. Dwight:With the economy such as it is, maybe more folks will go into medicine. Investment banking and start-ups ain’t what they used to be at the moment. It has worked for the military, so why not medicine? OK, we may not be talking the same demographic, but the same economic reality still applies.
Nov 2, 2009 - 7:20 pm 43. BC:I would hope that most people who would want to become doctors do so because, well, they want to become doctors, and not so much be price-gouging parasites intent on dating celebrities.
Nov 2, 2009 - 7:53 pm 44. seanmahair:This all reminds me of two dogs fighting over a bone. Eventually one will get it but by the time they do all the meat will have been chewed off .
Health care is broken. Fact. Medicare is busted. Fact. Congress is a festering carbuncle on the backside of the universe fact. But until we all can talk about this instead of screech expletive deleteds at each other nothing is going to change.
Far be it for me to interfere with your comprehensive fits (both sides of the issue). Continue…………..it doesn’t help but it’s the best entertainment for free one can find at this hour of the night.
Nov 2, 2009 - 8:38 pm 45. freelunch:The Left is always citing various European countries for having “successfully” implemented socialized medicine, often citing WHO statistics. It’s pretty clear that the WHO are inadequate for truly assessing the various healthcare delivery systems around the world and cannot honestly be used as a justification for socialized medicine, etc.
Does anybody know of a good resource for studies/statistics/etc on the various European healthcare schemes besides those from WHO?
Thanks
Nov 2, 2009 - 9:47 pm 46. moron:bandit at 5:21 Make that a government employee WITHOUT the bennies—no retirement or lifetime health care, plus all the malpractice abuse, serious time spent in extreme training and excessive overhead with very poor reimbursement to the tune of not being able to even meet overhead, much less profit. How, often does a government employee drag his worthless — out of bed in the middle of the night?? IMPLOSION!!
Nov 3, 2009 - 5:29 am 47. Michael Smith:Thank you , Dr. Hsieh, for telling us the truth about the failure of Massachusetts’s government-run, government-coerced, healthcare-at-gunpoint Obamacare preview.
Unfortunately, nothing motivates a liberal/leftist/”progressive” more than seeing the utter failure of his ideas in practice — such failures cause these reverse-wired, reality-evading, mindless “useful idiots” to push still harder for the ever-greater implementation of their wildly insane schemes.
No one sane can possibly believe that a 1,990 page healthcare “plan” cooked up by empty headed, way-out-of-their depth little shysters like Pelosi and Reed can possibly improve the efficiency of the healthcare system — such a notion is so laughably implausible that only the very best prevaricators on the planet — like our Liar-in-Chief Obama — can make such a claim with a straight face.
The healthcare “reform” bill is nothing but a massive power grab by our power-lusting president and his fellow looters in Congress — it’s just an excuse for another wholesale looting of the taxpayers to pay-off more political debts (see, for instance, the benefits to Unions in this plan) and to make more industries and individuals vulnerable to future governmental extortions.
And adding insult to injury, these damn cowards don’t even have the guts to make their plans effective immediately — instead, they schedule the physician enslaving and taxpayer looting to begin only after the next election, on the unstated premise that we the people are too stupid to understand who has done what to us.
But here, I think, they miscalculate. Americans are sick of these shenanigans, just as they are sick of being told that anyone who opposes the government’s plan to put a noose around every neck is a racists. Americans are not ready to surrender the last of their freedoms and quietly submit as the Democrats turn America into a fascist/socialist dictatorship — they won’t do so without a fight, and a helluva fight it’s going to be.
Nov 3, 2009 - 6:10 am 48. vivo:28. Marc Malone:
“How you gonna get more doctors, vivo?”
I perfectly understand what it takes to become a doctor. Several relatives are in the field. Short term, you entice foreign doctors to come here. Long term, you entice more Americans to get an MD. Short term, you suffer the waiting lines. Long term, you get your doctors. Who said gratification must be instant?
See 38. Gerry. Add China, India, Iran, East Europe. Many brilliant minds there.
BTW, many of the doctors I know are foreigners.
Nov 3, 2009 - 7:24 am 49. vivo:Another idea:
Make all those Catholic SAINTS that perform MIRACLES accessible to the public. Cheapest health care you ever saw.
Nov 3, 2009 - 7:31 am 50. TK:Great article Paul,
Nov 3, 2009 - 11:05 am 51. Brutus:I enjoy articles that refute socialized medicine from an individual’s rights standpoint. Politician’s will never figure out a magical formula to get the cost down because it isn’t a matter of costs, it is a matter of rights. Thanks.
–TK
Some comments in this thread are laughable.
I had to get a new primary care physician two years ago when mine finally said to hell with the system and started a new concierge practice, $6,000/year to get in and cash on the barrelhead (but they do make housecalls). Do you think this sort of thing isn’t going to be widespread under Obamacare unless it is specifically forbidden?
According to an NPR story last year, the Harvard Medical School Class of 2007 had ONE graduate planning on being a general practitioner. When you combine that with the increased demands that “universal” coverage brings about, is there any surprise that we have long waits for appointments and the ability to see only nurse pratitioners or physician’s assistants? CVS Pharmacy’s “Minute Clinic” will be the new paradigm for healthcare delivery in the US!
“Make more doctors” Like the skill set that a person must have to become an MD is untapped in tens of thousands of our fellow citizens. More likely, especially under Obamacare, the profession will be dumbed down to add the necessary warm bodies, with the attendant patient outcomes.
“Import more foreign doctors” Any foreign MD worth his salt is already here, as this is the final destination for a solid income for an MD. I had my first operation last year at Mass General Hospital, performed by a Pakistani-Brit surgeon, assisted by a Korean doctor, with an Icelandic anaesthesiologist. They’re already here, vivo.
The dirty little secret here in Massachusetts is that there is a substantial number of people still free riding on the system. My friend is a nurse at Boston teaching hospital, and about 25% of her caseload is free care (primarily homeless and illegal aliens). Due to their lifestyles, they are frequent flyers through the ER as part of the “free care” pool if they can’t make the minimal standards for Mass Health, our Medicaid program. Oh, and said emergency rooms here in Mass have recently seen a spike in violence and sexual assaults, directly attributable to the overcrowding and lack of security.
An unintended consequence of the Mass Plan is that our hospitals have become the problem patient dumping ground for the rest of New England. My friend reports more borderline cases arriving from the hinterlands; I’d be interested to know what their insurance status is.
Nov 3, 2009 - 7:30 pm 52. ergo:vivo says “Make all those Catholic SAINTS that perform MIRACLES accessible to the public. Cheapest health care you ever saw.”
Sorry.. they’re busy protesting at Mr Obama’s proposed speech at Notre Dame next spring..
Nov 4, 2009 - 3:43 am 53. Amit Ghate:Thanks for this article Dr. Hsieh!
It’s always interesting to see how a theory or plan fails in practice (rationing, no coverage, doctors no longer wanting patients!), when morality is stood on its head. The principle of individual rights, upon which this country was founded, was in essence a moral principle preserving each person’s right to his own life and happiness. When it is upheld, including allowing everyone to work and trade as they see fit, progress and prosperity has ensued. When it’s flouted (whether by Bush, Romney or Obama) the result is suffering and impoverishment. Thanks for connecting the dots as it applies to healthcare.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:28 pm