The Massachusetts Model – How NOT to Solve the Healthcare Crisis

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In 2006, Massachusetts started Commonwealth Care, a system designed to insure the uninsured and not cut out the private health insurance corporations. It is now held up as a model for healthcare in the U.S. The Obama administration would like to spread it throughout the country.

By the summer of 2008, a State of Massachusetts survey reported that 97.4% of the state’s 6.4 million residents, up from 88% in 2004, had health insurance.

Commonwealth Care mandates all Massachusetts residents to purchase a health insurance policy or face fines. Currently, 68% of residents receive health insurance through their employers, 15% from Medicare, and 17% from “public or other coverage,” meaning the lowest health insurance, which may or may not be partially subsidized by the state. Those on this new plan face the highest co-pays, the least options for care, and are likely to have to pay large out-of-pocket fees for any expensive procedure.

Universal Health Insurance?
This strategy is not universal healthcare, it is private health insurance forced on the poor. Residents must now pay for the lowest quality insurance policy or face a fine. The legislation even created a new lowest tier of insurance policies specifically to offer to those who could not afford what had been the least expensive option.

Before this plan, it was possible to walk into community care facilities and receive care without any insurance. Now, they won’t even look at you without it. In other words, what was once provided by the state to the poorest Massachusetts residents is now only provided if the private insurance companies can take a cut.

Much of the money spent in Massachusetts does not actually go to providing services to people. In the U.S., the for-profit, and even the non-profit, health insurance industry spends 31% of all its money on administrative costs, double the amount spent per person in Canada (Toronto Star, 8/21/2003). In other words, almost a third of your money spent on health insurance goes to hiring people to deny care and services.

Instead of cutting out the money that goes to fund health insurance companies, which could have provided funds to provide quality healthcare for the uninsured, this system has actually increased money going to these private insurance companies.

Commonwealth Care was initially touted as reducing public reliance on the state government. However, it cost Massachusetts $1.1 billion in 2008, up from $630 million in 2007.

The healthcare industry makes huge profits by denying care to people, as well as by taking profits from government programs like Medicaid. They give huge contributions to both Democrats and Republicans and have seen their influence continue to grow in Washington. Poll after poll has shown that the majority of Americans support a single-payer national healthcare plan (AP, 12/2007).

We Need Single Payer Healthcare
Quality healthcare, including convenient access, should be a right for all people. Everyone should be confident that if hurt, injured, or simply if they are sick that they will receive the care they need when they need it and not have to bankrupt their family to pay for it.

Single payer healthcare, as outlined in HR 676, would mean an expansion of the Medicare system to all U.S. residents. It would mean eliminating the profit motive from our healthcare by creating one payer for all health services: the federal government. It would put doctors, instead of insurance companies, in control of delivery of healthcare.

This would represent a step forward, as we would no longer have to deal with co-pays or worry about affording our medical bills. The next step would be putting this medical system under democratic public control.

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