Overseers of Massachusetts’ trailblazing healthcare program made their first cuts yesterday, trimming $115 million, or 12%, from Commonwealth Care, which subsidizes premiums for needy residents and is the centerpiece of the 2006 law….
An estimated 18,000 poor residents who qualify for full subsidies, but who forget to designate a health plan, will no longer be automatically assigned a plan and enrolled and thus could face delays in getting care…
Leaders of Health Care for All…said state officials appear to have made the best of a bad situation. “There’s no other place to go for money,” said Lindsey Tucker, the organization’s healthcare reform manager. “. . . My concern is people will not get the care that they need.”
Say it ain’t so, Health Care for All. Given the outrageous profits at big Pharma, the multi-million dollar salaries of insurance corporate executives at Blue Cross and others, and, the maze of non-uniform billing and general market failure that is our healthcare system, I find it impossible to believe that there was “no other place to go.”
So I hope the Globe’s reporter took Tucker out of context. On the other hand, Health Care for All receives a great deal of funding from massive insurance corporations including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Partners, Tufts, Harvard Pilgrim, and others. (See last page of annual report, warning, big pdf)
With 18,000 people about to start using emergency rooms for care, added to the nearly 30,000 legal immigrants already thrown off the healthcare bus, should health activists be on the attack? Why wasn’t cost containment included in the MA Health Reform Law? Someone, please explain this to me. What are the implications for the national fight?
