"Mandate Model" Healthcare: Massachusetts Highlights Problems

[bunnies]

November 20, 2007

Associate professor of medicine at Harvard University, Woolhandler is co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and co-wrote the piece "Massachusetts' Mistake."

She said today: "The Massachusetts health reform is busting the budget and already beginning to fall apart. The state based its budget projections on low-ball estimates of how many people are uninsured in the state, and unrealistic assumptions about what coverage would cost. And only 4 percent of the 244,000 uninsured people in the state who don't qualify for subsidized coverage have thus far signed up for insurance.

"Yet Clinton, Obama and Edwards would follow this same failed model. In fact, they're all proposing recycled versions of the 'mandate model'reform, first proposed by Richard Nixon. This model has been tried and failed -- in Massachusetts in 1988 under Mike Dukakis, and subsequently in Washington State and Oregon. Now it's failing again in Massachusetts. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. The Democratic front-runners' health reform plans are just that."

Link: http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1594

So much for "Universal" coverage. :eyes:

[bicentennial_baby]

1. Yep, I keep reading about it in the Globe...

Those estimates were waaaaaay off. Ugh. x(

[bunnies]

3. It makes me wonder about the estimates of uninsured country wide.

No one has ever asked me if I have health-care coverage. And since I havent been to the hospital... how would they know?

[Warpy]

2. So much for universal for profit insurance coverage

One of my friends had her weekly hours cut by half an hour so that she'd no longer be eligible for company insurance. Her paycheck was not raised to compensate for the loss. So on the same pay, she was forced to scramble for state mandated insurance. Her plan is an outrageously bad one.

She's well over 50, so she's trapped in that job and the other inadequate job she holds, one that had no insurance, ever.

How uniquely American, right, working two jobs to make one income, being chucked out of company benefits without seeing compensation to make up for them, and being forced to buy bad insurance she can't afford.

These plans are bad plans and proof that this country is nowhere near getting ready to deal with our healthcare honestly and compassionately.

I'll let you know in February how my first trip to find a new home has gone.

[bunnies]

4. And THAT, I fear, is exactly what will happen nationally.

Its a complete and utter disgrace IMHO.

Well... Im not fucking buying a shit plan that I cant really afford. Let 'em throw me in jail. At least THEN Ill get healthcare.

[sandnsea]

5. Oregon has subsidized insurance

And a lot of people are getting care who wouldn't have. Oregon made changes to its delivery system to though, and also has restrictions on what they will cover. More will have to be done and that becomes clear once you have a plan in place. That's why those steps are so important. They need to be done without mandates first, to work out the probems before they hurt people with required premiums.

Obama's plan does not mandate insurance on adults either, just saying.

[bunnies]

7. It kinda bothered me

that the article lumped all three of their plans all together. As I understand it, none of their mandates work the same way. Hillary - immediately and for everyone. Obama - only for children. And Edwards - for everyone after the issues have been addressed. It seems to me that Hillarys plan is most destined for failure based on the MA example.

I dont know why we cant just have single payer. I need health care not health insurance. Ya know?

[frazzled]

6. Obama's plan has no mandate ... n/t

[bunnies]

8. Well, his plan does have the mandate for children.

That must be the reason they noted him in the article.