Every citizen in the State of Massachusetts is hereby required to be covered by health insurance under a new law that imposes tax penalties for noncompliance. What? State-mandated health insurance? Penalties for the uninsured? The hell, you say!
What could very well end up being the model for a national health care plan, Massachusetts's's's's's' new plan will penalize those who can afford (someone needs to define "afford") health insurance but opt out of it and provide government subsidies to private insurance plans for those who can't. Bingo! More working poor will be covered, and, according to an article in The New York Times, more children will be eligible for free coverage.
Are you a Massachusetts business owner who employs more than 10 people? What? You don't provide insurance for your workers? Tsk! You will be fined up to $295 per employee per year under the universal plan. That's definitely not a big enough payout to make you not be a slumemployer, but it will, at least, be a thorn in your side to remind you, each year, what a scumbag you really are.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is all in favor of the plan. Oh, except for that little provision penalizing businessowners. Bah!
This nearly universal health care plan, funded by a mix of those penalized and the government, is projected to cover 515,000 uninsured people within three years, according to the Times article. Legislators say that's 95 percent of the state's uninsured.
Currently, the great State of Hawaii boasts the slimmest rate of uninsured: three percent. That's thanks to a 1974 universal access law that required employers to provide insurance to employees working 20 hours a week or more. Other states have tried and succeeded - only to quickly fail among a flurry of repealed statutory language.
Cowards. You're only hurting yourselves. It has long been understood that where there are insured people there is preventative health care. Where there is preventative health care, there are way fewer indigent people making emergency room visits they will never pay for. Where there are fewer unpaid emergency room bills and unpaid surgeries and treatments that could have been avoided with preventative care, there are lower insurance rates and lower costs of treatment. Vicious cycle, anyone?
To read about the state's first moment of clarity, click here.
3 comments:
Your subtitle "Well-behaved women can eat shit and die" is poetic genius. I applaud you.
You should take a college course on "Economics of Health". Socialized medicine is not without significant drawbacks. Why must the employer provide the health insurance? I could (almost) see making the employer manage a group plan and make that plan accessible to employees if the employee wants to pay for it, but can't imagine why the employer should have to.
The problem here is twofold: 1) ignorant lawmakers, 2) lazy, stupid citizens.
I guarantee you that the same people that think this Taxachusetts plan is a good idea (both lawmaker and citizen) will be in a blind rage then their job gets "shipped overseas" because they are just too damn expensive and their employer can't compete in a global marketplace when employing such expensive resources.
Public policy decisions have ramifications. You can't just look at the "ooh that flower is pretty" without considering whether or not it may also be poisonous.
Well, I may be just looking at the pretty flower but I happen to think that as long as someone works, he or she should have access to full health care. I also happen to think that health care ought to be affordable or free. If people aren't healthy, they can't work. If people aren't working, society crumbles. Sadly, there are a lot of drawbacks to socialized medicine because greed is such a huge motivator. Sad, don't you think?
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