Architects of the pioneering 2006 Massachusetts health law, which required most residents to have insurance, expected it would reduce families’ medical debt. But the most recent data suggest the scope of medical debt has remained largely unchanged.
Temporary lapses in insurance coverage and increasingly common plans with high deductibles and copayments have contributed to medical debt, leaving some people struggling to pay bills for hospitals, doctors, and ambulance companies. Rising health costs and the recession also probably played a role.
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There is too much dancing around this issue. People still have to pay a portion of their income that is over 10% of their income and leaves them with co-payments and deductibles in addition if they get sick. Health insurance is not a preventive program. It is suppose to cover you if you get sick without financial worries. Even in this state it does not do that for too many people. The solution rests in getting everyone into the same risk pool to lower bureacratic costs and provide adequate coverage. Insurers and providers have to stop negotiated different prices for different groups or institutions. If it is the same exact service it should cost the same no matter which insurer or provider offers it. By having an all inclusive risk pool and uniform negotiated pricing costs can be lowered by $400 billion across the nation. One has to look only to Medicare to see that price increases and coverage is superior to any private insurer.
“There’s always going to be some issue of some people having medical spending that stretches their budget,” said Jonathan Gruber.
Yes Gruber that is true if continue to use your approach that places the insurance industry at the center of the system rather than the patient. I know you have proffited nicely of of this idea but it hasnt been as a benificail to the majority of people.
Health care is not free for everyone. It never has been. As a health care professional I can tell you that Medicaid fraud,
and people fraudulently using our health care system, have, with the assistance of state and local government workers,and
religious groups who support illegal use of our facilities including schools, are responsible for you, the taxpayer, and now the unemployed citizen having to pay more than the fair share of health care for these people.
Don't blame Romney for this one. Blame our local and state goverment who continue to support illegal immigration, and the law
as well.
Illegal immigrants do not get Medicaid. More than half of Medicaid pays for people in nursing homes. Eighty per cent of the rest is for children. This welfare queen story has been disproven many times. Further it is not even relevant to the discussion of cost. Delivering health care has fixed costs since most of the expense is for professional income, nurses, supportive staff, and maintainance staff. Unless you saying there should be less of these services so doctors, nurses, other personnel have their income lowered or are dismissed then there is no way clamping down on Medicaid saves money. Yes fraud should be rooted out but then it will be channeled where it is needed. However the bottom line stays the same.
....... and break the law as well.correction to last line.
"Medical debt still a problem in Mass." Can you imagine how much of a massive debt problem it would be if people DID NOT have state required health insurance??
single payer yesterday, single payer today and single payer tomorrow - oddly it works in Sweden - that we, the American people should settle for less is absurd!
This story fails to report the contribution that medical providers' use of legbreaker companies to hound debtors may add to the issue of medical inflation. Hospitals have become absurd in their demands that bills they send out be paid within two weeks, even though the bills may carry no more information than the date of service.
To sraad: Thank goodness it's the law otherwise we would be paying huge sums of money for emergency room care for all who believe in your ideology and/or watch people drop dead prematurely. Of course, one could choose not to have health insurance and then pay the state tax.
Globe says "Although the law has failed to cut medical debt, some analysts say it may have prevented an increase in Massachusetts"---This is interesting LOGIC by the Globe writer, who is DESPERATE to avoid criticizing the law.---Now, since we have a logic statement, here is the EQUIVALENT logic ststement: "Although the law has failed to cut medical dept, MOST analysts say that it CAUSED an increase in Massachusetts.."---And this equivalent statement is much more likely to be the real case, now, and in the future. As long as the rules for the law are made by Deval Patrick in MA, and as long as the rules for ObamaCare are made by Kathleen Sibelius, Nancy Pelosi (who said, "You have to pass the law before you know what's in it"), and Barack Obama