Kevin_Kennedy
Defend Liberty
- Aug 27, 2008
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Its one of the greatest stories never told.
An ambitious Republican governor passes a revolutionary health reform plan that promises health insurance coverage for everyone but fails to reduce health costs or the growing reliance on the states overburdened hospitals and depends heavily on the financial support of the federal government.
But thats not the narrative you hear about Massachusetts.
The uniqueness of this 2012 presidential election in which one candidate is the author of the plan, the other borrowed it to craft his own health law has created a situation in which the voters arent hearing about the warts in Massachusettss health care law. Rather, both Democrats and Republicans talk about the successes or dont talk about it at all.
Big ?Romneycare? secret: It didn?t rein in costs - Jennifer Haberkorn and Kyle Cheney - POLITICO.com
Here's some of the good parts:
Health care costs per capita were 27 percent higher in Massachusetts than in the rest of the country in 2004, two years before the state plan was signed, Holtz-Eakin says. By 2009, it was 30 percent higher than the national average.
The laws failure to rein in health care costs is widely acknowledged by nonpartisan analysts, as well as conservative critics. But theres more material for critics to work with if either party wanted to use it. For example, emergency room use has gone up, not down undermining the laws effort to get that problem under control by expanding coverage.
State health policy officials issued a report last month showing a 6 percent increase in emergency room use from 2006 to 2010, the first four years when the law was in effect. That figure has confounded proponents of the law, who hoped emergency room care would plummet when residents had access to insurance and primary-care doctors.
Detractors in the Bay State also say the law has done little to dent the surging demand seen by the states largest safety-net hospitals.
Its getting harder for Massachusetts residents to see a doctor, too. A report released last month by the Massachusetts Medical Society found that only half of the states primary-care providers are accepting new patients, down from 70 percent in 2007. And the average wait time to see a doctor in family medicine is 45 days up from 34 days in 2007.
So I know we're all shocked that more government intervention in the health care market has simply made the situation that much worse.