The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center(Mass Budget) published this paper on the health care spending portion of the Governor's budget. Essentially, the governor is level funding the health care programs which provide services for about 1.5 million of our fellow residents. I don't see how this funding level can possibly be adequate. The average increase in health care costs over the past few years is between 7 and 8% annually. Something doesn't add up. Of course, the state can try ...
... to reduce or freeze the payments to providers but the truth of the matter is the Commonwealth is not a big enough player in the market to extract those sort of concessions. Providers would chose not to accept the patients, rather than accept the new reimbursements. This is an illustration of the fecklessness of trying to control health insurance costs via a mish-mash of government subsidized programs. A single payer system for every resident of the Commonwealth would solve the problem, allowing cost control via a negotiated agreements with providers.
What do you think?
Friday, February 11, 2011
Health care funding in the FY2012 state budget
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7 comments:
SIngle payer would solve nothing. Withold payments for what reason? Because the government thinks someone is making too much money? Or the government is thinking a product or service is worth less than it does? Who will make the rules as to what a service costs? The government? What a joke.
Everything else in the budget is getting level funded or cut why should the magic health care system in Massachusetts not face the same standard? To use your own logic from here in town maybe the state should ask for an override to pay for the burdonsome cost of healthcare? Oh wait I forgot - this whole mass health thing was supposed to lower our health care costs. I forgot about that. Apparently someone needs to tell Devol something's not working.
I refer you to this post about what the cost of health care is doing to the country. Americans pay twice or more as much for health care as any other nation. Unfortunately, our actual care is not twice as good.
You can find a report on health care elsewhere at this link.
I must admit I find the opposition to universal health care puzzling. Either the current system will continue to deny coverage to your family, friends and neighbors and bankrupt the country or we will have reform.
Universal health care means I pay for someone who decides they do not want to put into the system, only take from the system. That is why I object to it. Kind of obvious.
OK, who pays for those people when they get sick now? Hint: U
Yes I know I pay for them now too Bill. Hint: Send home illegal immigrants so I don't have to pay for them first. Then crack down on lawsuits with no merit. Fine those that use the hospital system as their persoanl physician. Then stop all talk of taxing medical device makers. Then streamline the introduction of new medicines and medical devices so it does nat take years if not decades to get things in the market. Once this is done we can talk about how to treat those that decide not to carry even the most minimal amount of insurance. OK smart alack? Would that be a good starting point?
Here in lovely Massachusetts mandating insurance for all has done nothing to reduce my health insurance costs or reduce service time. Rather the opposite is true, cost have continues to skyrocket. More doctors are limiting their practices to none MassHealth patients (need a low to prevent that no doubt-right?)so guess what? My doctor is now swamped and guess who waits even longer now? Hint: Me.
You know what annoys me almost as much as all these mandate? The people who think they are the smartest people in the room and know what's best for everyone else.
It is not only immigrants who use our emergency rooms. There are many American citizens who go to the ER because they do not have insurance. If they had insurance and a PCP, it would be much less for the rest of us, but instead they use the ER like a free clinic. Who pays? We all pay.
@11:15 - did not say it was ONLY illegals who mis-use our emergency rooms but that's where we should start. Then we can then better consider those American citizen's who need help.
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