FYI

[brynndragon]

Today at 3PM on WBUR (90.9 FM and online at WBUR.org) fucking Romney and members of the state legislature will be discussing the new health care plan with the public. I'll be listening, because I want to know if my (and some friend's) impression that this is taking a nice notion[1] and turning it into a nightmare for people who are eking out a living or are (or become) GoLs[2].

[1] No matter how feasible you think it is (I'm up in the air about it myself), quality health care for everyone (aka universal health care) is a fabulous idea.

[2] Gentlepeople of Leisure, also known as the unemployed

Comments

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

It seems really poorly thought out. It's not only a nightmare for barely-middling citizens, but for the bureaucrats who have to help people find solutions to problems like "I'm taking a month off between jobs, can you find a plan for me that only lasts a month and costs less than the fine?" I know, I'm assuming bureaucrats actually *work*, but if problems like that aren't solved there will be an agrarian revolt, with a mob that's especially infurated by the frustration of trying to find pitchforks, spades, and torches in the city of Boston.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure about the poorly part. There clearly was a lot of compromising that went into this, as greyhame points out above. In fact, he reminded me what I thought of when I first heard of this plan. This is a creeping bit of the "ownership society" in action. What I don't see--and it may be that I haven't looked hard enough--is a statistical analysis. The costs are shifting around and there's a lot of uncertainty for small employers and those with medium incomes. Whether or not this is a good change will not only come on the top-note number of those insured by the plan as of it's adoption but also the longer term increase or decrease in small employers providing insurance, middle-income workers able to stay insured, population and employment changes as a result. (Sheesh. The numbers on the Social Security destruction plan were trivial compared to this--as I'm writing this I'm realizing how many variables there are.)

I'm subject to these changes because I'm employed in Massachusetts, of course. I was just explaining to New Guy (who is, of course, thirty and obliviously healthy) that if things take another downturn here, our employer could easily pony up $300/head and leave the 3,000 or so of us on our own to contract for health insurance since they pay far more than that now. (He doesn't see this as a bad thing.) Granted, that would cause a serious brain drain. But that would mean I could only get a NH policy, which would be somewhat suckier in their protections than the corresponding MA policy would be, depending on the insurer. (Live healthy or die. Heh. HCHP has a common policy for individuals, as I recall, since it's regional. BCBS, which I'm stuck with as of this year, actually writes different individual policies for NH and MA. They're technically separate companies in those two states.)

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

is this ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership_society ) what you mean by 'ownership society'?

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[white-and-nrdy.livejournal.com]

Compromising, by nature, is what *neither* party entirely wanted in the first place, but what they "meet in the middle" on in order to proceed. Each side (or all, if more than one) presumably did their own research to determine what they think the best plan will be. The compromise that moves forward isn't *anybody's* best plan.

I think it's absolutely wonderful if a company, or a tribe, or even a small town wants to provide health care for everyone. And conceptually, I think that everyone should have access to more than the "don't get sick" health plan (which I've been on for 2 years - the end of that is 2 weeks away, thanks to a new job). But in practice, it comes down to wanting to please all of the people all of the time, which is impossible.

Once you try to mandate something like health care to a large number of people, by necessity it has to boil down the the lowest common denominator, and in the process it becomes less and less applicable to individual needs. Many think Canada's national health care system is great. For a long time I did. But then I heard individual Canadians complaining about the problems they've had getting adequate treatment and how much it costs and other problems.

Unfortunately, our population has grown so much that the days of the town doctor, who knew everyone personally and took good care of them, are long since gone.

I don't live in Mass. anymore, but my biggest concern is that this plan, which is supposed to be helping people, will actually end up screwing a lot of them instead. And I'm afraid the chance of this is rather good, since many of the state's plans end up being that way. :(

[friode.livejournal.com]

A month off from jobs should normally be trivially be solvable with COBRA, if you're going from a job that has traditionally paid for health insurance to another such job.