A comment from the recent health insurer “adverse selection” thread struck me, and John McDonough highlighted it in a post of his as well. Our longtime commenter “fairdeal” writes:
i had a wonderful 2 hours this morning cruising through health plan options that are now suddenly affordable for me. personally, i was thrilled to seek out the information. i have been waiting for this day my entire adult life.
and the connector has actually done a pretty good job of consolidating and making available information about various plans options. before, it would be necessary to call up the sales office at blue cross, the sales office at fallon, the sales office at harvard-pilgrim, the sales office at tufts, the sales office at vanguard, and on and on. so not only can one get all of the benefits/costs overviews directly from the connector, you (or at least i) have some peace of mind that there now exists an oversight and regulatory party. whereas before, shopping for health insurance felt like being thrown into a shark tank.
More than a year ago, “fairdeal” and I used to go head-to-head: I was in favor of our new health care law, with serious reservations; fairdeal thought it was a non-solution, a disaster waiting to happen. (He can characterize his own views if he wishes.)
In any event, this is praise coming from a genuine Chapter 58 skeptic. I think fairdeal and I would agree that no amount of blind happy-talk will make this law the ideal, but we’ve got to give credit to the folks at the Connector and the administration for making a good faith effort, with apparently some success.
PS: WBUR is hosting a call-in show @ 3pm regarding the new health care law; they’re aiming it in particular at those who will be affected by the new law. Call 800-423-8255 to get on the show, or comment on the Commonhealth blog.
UPDATE (by David): The Connector’s compare-‘n’-contrast website is now live, and it’s pretty cool. You type in your zip code, your birthday, what you do, and the coverage you want, and it tells you what plans are available and how much they cost.
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Additions in bold.
as “pig-headedly insisting on a position that everyone knew would not be adopted, then vetoing the compromise hammered out by the House, the Senate, and business and health care interests in order to benefit your presidential campaign, knowing full well that the veto would be overridden.”
Tsk, where do you get your dictionary. Here’s the definition of orchestrating.
But I’d suggest that the short version of that link is “the career people did their jobs, as they always have, despite the political nitwittery emanating from the Corner Office.”
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Still, you are a worthy sparring partner! đŸ˜‰
Insofar as Romney did not hinder the passing of a law which has insured many thousands, and will make covering more possible, sure, he should get credit — if he wants it.
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However, the real work of implementation is being done by the Connector folks, with the administration’s obvious input and clout. That’s how it was always going to be: If Chapter 58 succeeds at all, it would be mostly the new Governor’s work (whomever that would be), and Romney would/could take credit.
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Your “negotiation between business and government” is really telling. Business and the state will work things out amongst themselves — the general populace be damned. Or maybe that’s not what you’re saying.
… which, it seems, he doesn’t. Widely-available and -accessible health care is seen in Camp Romney as a bit liberal for the Republican primaries, apparently.
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Link.
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That’s where the tension and therefore the negotiation lies for the future of healthcare–between business and government.
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Business is the doctors, health care providers, insurance companies, PHARMA. Business trys to maximize profit. Government represents the people. Government isn’t so concerned with maximizing profit but is, or should be, concerned with jobs, productivity, health and well-being of the citizenry.
That’s how it’s supposed to work, sure. But in reality, our representatives in government represent whomever pays for them to keep their jobs. That’s not John Q. Public much of the time.
time for some uncomfortable truth-telling.
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fairdeal, the “longtime commenter”, is, like it or not, being used as a “poster boy” for the new MA health reform law — both on the HCFA blog and by charlie on the front page here at bmg.
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in fairdeal’s words, “giving credit where credit’s due” may seem innocuous but you can be sure that within the high-stakes game that is hc reform, it will be used strategically to create the very useful — to some groups — effect of giving political cover for the major flaws in the new law and for stymieing efforts for addtitional needed reforms. Establishing clear rules with public accountability for how our hc dollars are spent is a priority reform area.
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these flaws are referred to in more informal circles as “how the new law reinforces and worsens the ways we’re all getting screwed royally in our current hc financing system”.
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to build on the cross-posting theme, rhondda lays it out
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blockquote>On NPR-WBUR’s Commonhealth blog
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Chapter 58 is simply unaffordable. At $7,200 per capita, the U.S. currently spends twice as much as other advanced nations on healthcare and yet does very poorly on healthcare outcomes in comparison with these same nations.
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Massachusetts currently spends $9,100 per capita, more than any entity in the world. The current Chapter 58 patchwork fix will only add to that burden and will never achieve universal coverage. By adopting this bill, Massachusetts has only added further complexity at increased cost to a system which will continue to ration healthcare benefits by income. Those at the bottom of the income scale who require the most support will have to cope with high out-of-pocket costs as a result of being mandated to purchase plans with barebones benefits, plans which may cause them to go into bankruptcy.
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Under a single-payer plan, we would be able to reduce the huge administrative costs of both the public and private insurance systems in Massachusetts and no longer subsidize the huge amounts of money now spent by private insurance companies on the marketing and administrative costs of competition. The money saved would then enable us to provide everyone with a comprehensive, affordable healthcare plan funded by a Massachusetts Healthcare Trust to which everyone would contribute.
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Under such a plan risk would be spread over a large and diverse population, thereby reducing the claims volatility currently experienced by both employer-provided and private plans. The result would be the elimination of the volatile inflationary premium increases we now experience from year to year in our present private/public insurance systems.
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Not only would we have a healthier population under a single-payer system, we would be able spend more of our tax dollars on other state priorities such as education. – Rhondda Tewes
This afternoon the Commonwealth Choice website went live.
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I checked it out while listening to the WBUR call-in, and was pleasantly surprised. It seems to be a sane, transparent way to compare options, giving you the premiums and choices about co-pays and deductibles.
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The only real downer is the requirement to put in your “industry;” I guess the rates vary a bit depending on if you work somewhere dangerous or not. There are probably too many choices in some parts of the state.
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If you have some time on your hands, go in the individual portal and enter in different ages or zip codes or industries, and you can actually see what different plans cost.
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Here’s the site: http://www.mahealthconnector.org (http://www.mahealthc…)
i have tons to say on this. but in the interests of brevity i would just like to add a couple of bullet points;
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the fact that our representatives who are elected to serve the public interest have done something (anything!!) to finally begin to deal with our broken healthcare system is worthy of praise. (the fact that it has taken so long is shameful. but i’m willing to put that aside for now.) charley may be confusing me with someone else, as i have never said that chapter 58 was a disaster waiting to happen. and i haven’t thought of it as a non-solution, as much as i consider it a faux-solution.
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i have now and always believed the most responsible, effective and efficient solution to fixing americas broken healthcare system is a federally mandated, state designed and administered single payer system.
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and the early successes and innovations that i have seen (and experienced) so far, are the result of actions consistent with a single payer system.
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beginning in a few weeks, i’ll have full healthcare coverage for the first time since i was a kid on my dads military retirement plan.
and in my mind, i owe this new development to one thing; government intervention.
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and so a little note to all of you freemarketeers: the free market in healthcare did NOTHING for me.
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for years, i’ve run a self-employed small business. i’ve come to work every morning, tried to eat right and exercise, played by the rules, and all of that. but because it’s not cost-effective (read: profitable enough) for the insurance cartel to deal with individuals like myself, and they were the only ones that one could deal with if i wanted access to healthcare, people like me had 2 choices. either;
a. pay 2-3 times the rate of an equivalent person in a large group plan, subject their terms and whims.
b. take a walk.
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times are changing. some of it’s not going to work right at first. and the change is going to fit some people better than others. but the success of CommonwealthCare and Commonwealth Choice is the success of a publicly administered and regulated system. and this is a success that should be heralded.
I think I even know your name from the old Typepad site. I just didn’t characterize your position precisely. Thanks for clarifying.
if only the majority of the small biz community could be as knowledgable as you! We urgently need their help to push the reform momentum toward truly workable and sustainable solutions, ie an American-style Medicare For All health program. (And yes, this can begin to happen state by state).
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but no reform worth a darn in controlling costs, guaranteeing access, and improving quality will ever come without a fight of monumental proportions.
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b/c these reforms REQUIRE the re-allocation of resources away from private insurers who control huge sums of wasteful spending that characterize our private insurance competition, market-driven crazy system that we’re all suffering through now. The burueacracy of the private insurance industry perpetuates many other layers of wasteful burueacracy/wasted hc spending that’s required to deal with the insurance bureaucracy. Not only is it wasteful but it’s driving health professionals out of healthcare!!!!!
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We can fix this “American-style” but it will require putting people before profits.