Comments on: Private Health Insurance = Newspapers

By: Billy Townsend

Billy Townsend — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:18:22 +0000

It’s curious, DR, that at the end of a post that aims, in excruciating length, to explain why I think private health care, as we know it, will go away without radical reform, that you choose to post without elaboration a post that simply says, “Massachusetts plan bad.” Cognitive dissonance. Do you really have nothing to say about my actual point? Tell me why the private insurance model isn’t doomed without massive tax subsidies. Tell me why it’s wrong for me to say the US private sector has demonstrated it cannot cover all Americans with reasonable insurance at a reasonable cost while the European public sector can.

As I understand it, the Mass. plan, which Mitt Romney was able to tout as an accomplishment in his Republican primary, is precisely the type of subsidize insurance companies and let them cherrypick customers plan that is my worst of all worlds. You would know that had you read more closely.

That being said, the fact that only 1/3 of Mass. residents reported an increase in their health expenses suggests to me to the plan is actually working, despite my objections. Do you think just 1/3 of Floridians reported an increase in their health expenses over the same period? I can tell you that I was certainly one of that 1/3. I rather suspect that in most places it’s 3/3.

And since when do conservatives care about hard-headed denial of claim policies?

Love and kisses.

By: » Ultimately, All Politics is Personal at Metro I4 News - Central Florida News and Info

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:07:09 +0000

[...] health care system depends on the willingness of employers to pay for its ever-increasing cost, as I laid out here. They want to stay with a model that is almost certainly doomed if it doesn’t change. And [...]

By: Donkeyrock

Donkeyrock — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:31:14 +0000

“Massachusetts was to be the nation’s test ground for universal health insurance. MassCare has been held up as the model for similar policies on a national level. Its key elements are part of the national healthcare reform measures being proposed for all of us. It is newsworthy what the experiment has learned and how things have been working. Yet, national media has been quiet on news about what is happening… even when the most anticipated benefits have not been proven out, and in fact, have been made worse.”

“Most stunning to learn was that MassHealth denies claims for payment of medical care dramatically more than any other type of insurance plan — more than four times as often as BCBS, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care or Tufts Health Plan. Tufts denied 4.9 percent of claims, Harvard Pilgrim 5.4 percent, Fallon 5.7 percent and Blue Cross-Blue Shield 6.2 percent — while MassHealth denied 23.8 percent of claims.”

“All evidence is showing the proposals haven’t worked. And if they don’t work for one state, they won’t work better when they’re multiplied nationwide. But if we never hear what’s happening in Massachusetts, we won’t know what we can expect until it comes to us.”

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/07/missing-news-headlines.html

By: Angry Conservative

Angry Conservative — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:52:40 +0000

Billy, nice point but what about the gazillions of us 50 and 60 somethings that are already too old and unhealthy for private employer health care coverage and too young for medicare? Do you really think we of the now AARP grey hair generation are going to wait around for their private business model to collapse before we can get effective health care .. which you rightly point out will only come from a government program? No we won’t.

When I was your age I noticed that “old” people tend to be politically active and now I’m one of those “old” people and us baby boomers WILL be politically active, too. Perhaps more so than any other generation in history. The private industry special interests lobbyists have held our democracy at gun point long enough, their money doesn’t vote, neither do corporations, but we do! And your point about economic hardship for the individual being the best promoter of true change in “ideals” is right on target. That economic hardship is happening right now in health care and we will vote for change, period. I hope those centrist or hard right politicians who are standing in the way of our health care solution, at least the ones that want a long political career, get our message or they will soon be planning a career change, too.

By: Kemp Brinson

Kemp Brinson — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:37:07 +0000

Really interesting post. I don't feel qualified to agree or disagree with it, and I'm not sure I would take any pleasure whatsoever in large numbers of people losing their health insurance at about the same time, but it is an interesting problem to ponder. There was a good article in the New Yorker earlier this year about how healthcare systems evolved in other countries, especially the UK whose system was spawned the emergency circumstances of World War II. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/26/090126fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all It's good reading and bolsters your crisis theory of national healthcare.