From Statehouse News (subscription only, no link available)
Gov. Mitt Romney is likely to recommend changes to a per-employee fee for certain companies who do not offer health insurance to their employees, the governorâs spokesman said Wednesday. The $295 per-employee fee is included in final legislation that is on Romneyâs desk and is the result of a compromise reached by House and Senate leaders during the last five months. Romney aides say the revenue from the assessment is not a major revenue source in the larger plan and is not needed. Lawmakers predict the new fee will bring in roughly $48 million a year. Romney’s spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said the bill is âvirtually the same bill the governor filed a year ago, but there are some new features the Legislature has added and Governor Romney is going to look at those new features very carefully and in all likelihood make modifications and adjustments.â As for the assessment, Fehrnstrom added: âThis is not something the governor asked for and therefore in all likelihood he will make modifications and adjustments in that area.â Legislative leaders say itâs essential that businesses with more than 10 employees make contributions to help the state accomplish its goal of near-universal health care.
So he’s doing it. He’s going to line-item veto, get overridden and then look like an idiot (I hope :). What else is new. Correct me if I’m wrong isn’t this whole employer assesment the whole point? At least in principe? That employers should pay into the system because if they don’t, taxpayers do?
The Good and Bad for America in Massachusetts’ New Universal Health Care Model
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April 5, 2006
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Santa Monica, CA — The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) today warned that a Massachusetts universal care plan, which includes a requirement that individuals and families buy health insurance, not be considered a national model. Massachusetts’s nonprofit health care market and existing laws are unlike most markets in the nation.
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FTCR voiced concern about the affordability of the law, which requires families of three who make more than $48,000 per year to buy health insurance without any limits on what the insurer can charge.
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A true universal coverage model would use the bulk purchasing power of a public health program like Medicare that pays doctors and hospitals directly at the most efficient price with the lowest overhead and fewest middlemen.
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The consumer group called for insurance premium regulation to guarantee affordability and warned against adoption of individual purchase mandates in states dominated by for-profit insurers.
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FTCR pointed out what’s good and bad in the new Massachusetts model.
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Good
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–The state requires insurers to sell policies to every similarly situated individual at the same price regardless of health status, past medical conditions, age or gender â unlike the underwriting that exists in most markets. In most states, including California, insurers may charge more, raise rates or simply refuse coverage to the sick.
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–Massachusetts’ new rules will pay doctors and hospitals more for better health outcomes and cost reductions.
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BAD
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–Individuals have to pay for heath insurance or face tax liens that criminalize them, but there is no state limit on or regulation of how much insurers can charge. Massachusetts should require insurers to receive prior approval from the state for all rate increases.
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–Patients with good health insurance through their employers may lose coverage because the bill allows employers to switch to “bare bones”high-deductible policies. Employers that don’t pay for coverage under the new law pay only a $295 per year per employee fineâa token provision.
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–High-deductible plans encouraged by the new law will discourage preventive care and early diagnosis of diseaseâwhich saves lives and money. Individuals will have to navigate a maze of policies thatcannot be easily compared, as in the privately administered Medicare Part D drug benefit.
For all the complaining from business, the $295 annual fee is very affordable for most employers.
but how is that different from the current situation, in which employers aren’t required to give you squat? I brought up the “Freakonomics” argument, i.e. that quantifying doing the wrong thing actually encourages those who can afford it to do so; but I’m not sure I buy it myself.
And employer assessments are a big part of the problem with our health care system in MHO — not to mention the drag that system imposes on our state and national economies. The idea that businesses are somehow different from “us” and that laying costs on “them” won’t have an immediate impact — or any impact to hear some talk! — on everyone is absurd. The fastest way from the current system to universal coverage is through individual mandates. Companies don’t get sick, people do, as I have written before. That said, I agree with a required minimum level of coverage for firms that pay low wages and rely on the state to make sure their poverty-stricken employees are healthy enough to show up for work.
any legislation and to incorporate any changes that are consistent with his or her policies. This is called checks and balances and is the primary reason Republican Governors have been elected in this state the past three elections despite the fact that , I believe, republicans represent only 27% of the registered voters. The voters clearly do not trust the legislature . Recent polls confirm this fact . Yes, Romney’s micromanaging of this health care legislation is a good thing .
Wouldn’t it be funny if they overrode the line item veto, but then increased the surcharge another $1?
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Yeah yeah, difficult, petty, and whatnot. But man it would be funny.
and continued weaseling, because the Governor never put forth a plan that showed how he was going to pay for anything, using bald assertion that “universal health care” — whatever that means — wasn’t going to require extra bucks. So now we have a revenue stream, and he’s going to veto it? That’s not reality — that’s Grover Norquist politics.
and a thought on Grover Norquist politics — if we allowed the whackies to shrink government enough that they could “drown it in a bathtub” wouldn’t that be … anarchy.
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a representative government is designed to be the voice and protector of the citizenry. just because a small minority of Grover-Norquist extremists propose anarchy doesn’t mean we should follow them off the cliff.
is antithetical to checks and balances. investing that much power in the executive branch is not only a bad idea, it’s obnoxious.
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now we’re fortunate that Gov. Romney seems to have little interest in actually running government (the only thing he knows how to run is a campaign) otherwise I’d be very frightened of that line item veto.
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as for whether Romney has the power to do something, that doesn’t make it right.
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so I have to wonder how our Romney supporters feel about the small amount of time President Clinton had the line item veto. After all, nobody trusted the Republican-controlled legislature (if I follow the logic correctly.) as a matter of fact the only ones who didn’t like it were the nine “activist” Supreme Court justices who struck down the line item veto as unconstitutional.
I don’t think the line-item veto is such a bad thing. The vast majority of Governors (around 45, IIRC) have it. It’s a useful check against ridiculous omnibus bills and legislative pork.
The line-item veto is procedural. It doesn’t alter the fundamental balance of power between the branches.
The upside to this is that if Romney uses the line-item veto, then I can take back the reluctant props I’ve been giving him for being part of the health care solution. That was beginning to warp my worldview. It’s easier just to see him as a shill for the Heritage foundation. A line-item veto will allow me that comfort again. It’ll be nice to see the Legislature override him with force.
let’s not lose sight of the fact that everything romney does from now on will happen through the prism of his presidential dreams. it’s an open question whether he now considers his contituency to be the citizens of the commonwealth or the south carolina republican committee.
so watch for him to make some sort of symbolic ‘pro-business’, ‘pro-growth’ gesture that he can flaunt on his next pander junket to the heartland. the leg will then unceremoniously override him. and everything will then continue apace.
Reminds me of first ever post on Blue Mass Group, a report on the Second Middlesex state senate special elections candidates forum: