Progressive

Posted by Mark Todd Engler in Care Without Insurance, Economic principles, Government employees, Health Care, Massachusetts on Mar 31st, 2009 | no responses

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Reason Foundation's blog had a post earlier this month noting that even giddy central-planning fanboys and groupies aren't squealing unrestrained glee for Massachusetts-style universal health coverage.

Just after publication of the article, "Massachusetts Faces Costs of Big Health Care Plan," in the March 15 New York Times, the left-wing Institute for America's Future issued a "scathing indictment of the Massachusetts' plan," said Reason.org's Shikha Dalmia. "Among its findings":

Average health care premiums in the state are rising faster than the national average
Although the ranks of the uninsured have diminished in the state, thanks to massive subsidies for people up to 300% over the poverty limit, 100,000 people who don't qualify for state help are opting to pay the fine rather than purchase health care. In other words, Massachusetts residents now have to pay the state for the privilege of remaining uninsured in the state.
Most devastatingly: 13% people who have coverage had to forego critical care or prescription drugs because they couldn't afford the co-pays – meaning that even the insured in the Bay State have to forego care, defeating the whole purpose of universal coverage.

Of course, the glaring policy imperfections of Massachusetts' "TonySopranoCare" have hardly dulled fanatical progressive ambitions for universal government-run care.

The IAF's prescription for the shortcomings, inefficiencies, failures and injustices symptomatic of the system devised by former Gov. Mitt Romney is to empower really smart federal bureaucratic capos to "ensure equitable distribution of the cost of care among government, individuals and employers, based on ability to pay," according to the Institute report.

At the same time, having the U.S. government "jump into the insurance business with both feet and compete directly with private companies by offering its own Medicare-style health plan for Americans," predicts Dalmia, is really just "a quick way of killing the private insurance industry and paving the way for nationalized health care."

But then, American progressives always do tend to spell "reform" the same way, concludes Dalmia:

"E-U-R-O-P-E."