[Other articles below]
|
Mindfully.org
note: |
BOSTON — Gov. Mitt Romney signed a groundbreaking measure Wednesday that makes Massachusetts the first state to mandate universal health care.
Supported by Democrats and Republicans in the state Legislature, the law requires residents to buy health insurance by July 1, 2007, just as drivers must have automobile coverage.
It aims to help low-income families buy private health insurance with subsidies and penalizes those who don't get coverage. It will help extend coverage to about 500,000 people in the state who lack health insurance, or about one in 13 residents.
The law has thrust the state to the forefront of a national debate over how to extend coverage to the millions of Americans without it. It's also a potential political coup for Romney as he weighs a possible run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
"Massachusetts is leading the way with health insurance for everyone, without a government takeover and without raising taxes," Romney said.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who attended the signing ceremony, praised Romney for giving the state "just what the doctor ordered."
HOW IT WORKS: The program is to be financed largely with millions that the state now spends on uncompensated medical care for poor people.
It will cost about $1.3 billion in public and private funding a year, but only $125 million will be new state money. The rest will come from some new funds and a relocation of existing money, including $650 million in federal funds, $320 million from insurance companies and hospitals and $50 million from penalties on businesses that don't provide insurance.
• People who don't have health insurance will have to buy it by mid-2007 or forfeit their individual state tax exemptions. Those who don't buy it after the second year would have to pay fines equal to half the cost of an affordable plan.
• Private insurance companies, working with state officials, will develop low-cost plans that people can buy on a pretax basis through a new state-run insurance exchange. The price isn't set, but state officials hope it will be about $200 a month.
• The legislation increases payments to hospitals and doctors and expands coverage for poor children through Medicaid.
• People who earn more than 300% of federal poverty levels — $28,700 for a single person and about $60,000 for a family of four — get no financial help.
• Companies with more than 10 workers that don't offer health insurance must pay the state $295 for each employee.
Romney used his line-item veto power to strike eight portions of the bill, including the $295 fee. Officials said some employers might consider it cheaper to pay the fee than to insure workers.
But legislative leaders said they would override any changes. Business and hospital leaders also criticized the veto.
SKEPTICISM: Critics say the new law lacks adequate funding and cost controls.
"We will look back at this new legislation as a well-motivated but naive, underfunded political approach," said Dr. Alan Sager, a codirector of the Health Reform Program at Boston University's school of public health.
It remains unclear how much help some people will get from the program, and people who get no public assistance could have difficulty buying policies.
"If consumers are forced to pay for a policy that's not affordable, there's going to be another Boston Tea Party," said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a consumer watchdog group in Santa Monica, Calif.
IN CALIFORNIA: A measure introduced Wednesday in California's state Assembly would require businesses to cover 75% of health-care costs for employees or pay as much as 7% of their annual payroll to subsidize universal health care.
People who don't have insurance would face a civil fine under the bill, proposed by Joe Nation, a Democrat from Marin County.
His plan would cap deductibles, require premium rates to vary only based on geography and age and forbid insurers from restricting coverage for preexisting conditions.
source: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060413/NEWS07/604130438/1009&template=printart 13apr2006
BOSTON — Gov. Mitt Romney signed legislation Wednesday that would make Massachusetts the first state to require everyone to have health insurance, just as drivers must have automobile coverage.
The law would make Massachusetts the only state with universal health coverage, employing a combination of subsidies and penalties to make insurance more affordable and to force people to buy it, too.
But Romney vetoed a section imposing an annual $295-per-worker fee on businesses that do not provide employees with coverage.
Massachusetts has an estimated 550,000 uninsured residents.
The program is a potential political coup for Romney as he weighs a possible run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
The governor said the program would be financed largely with the millions of dollars the state now spends on uncompensated medical care for poor people who show up at hospitals and clinics without health insurance.
By July 2007, everyone in Massachusetts will have to have health insurance.
Under the plan, the state will offer free or heavily subsidized coverage to poor and lower-income people.
Those who can afford insurance but still refuse to get it will face escalating tax penalties, such as losing the ability to claim a personal exemption on their state tax returns.
The cost of the program was put at $316 million in the first year, rising to more than a $1 billion in the third year, with much of that money coming from federal reimbursements and existing state spending, officials said.
About $125 million in new money will come from the state's general fund each of the three years. The $295 per-employee assessment would have brought in a maximum of $45 million a year.
Romney used his line-item veto power to strike eight portions of the bill, most significantly the $295 fee.
source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0604130126apr13,1,2576544.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed 13apr2006
Gov. Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts' first-in-the-nation bill designed to force all residents to get health insurance, but uncertain support from insurers raised questions about whether everyone would be covered at affordable rates.
The governor used his line-item veto to cancel a provision that would have required employers with 10 or more employees who don't provide insurance to start offering it or pay fees of $295 per employee. Mr. Romney has said that provision is unnecessary to fund the bill.
Democrats who control the state legislature said they expect to override the veto and restore the provision. They said it was a key part of the legislative compromise that led to the bill's overwhelming passage last week.
The Massachusetts bill is being watched widely as a possible pattern for other states and as a prime element in Mr. Romney's expected bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. It reallocates existing federal and state funds and requires uninsured residents to buy health insurance, which the state would subsidize for poor people.
The state's Division of Insurance will now begin crafting regulations for health-insurance plans, and a new state entity called the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector will begin reviewing and approving policies submitted by health insurers.
While doctors, health-care advocates and hospitals have generally been supportive of the Massachusetts plan, most health insurers have been cautious. Yesterday, the state's largest insurers, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, declined to comment about their plans because they want to see the regulations.
Marylou Buyse, president of Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, a health insurers' trade group, said "it's going to be challenging to develop" affordable policies since the legislature said the new plans couldn't deny any benefits the state has mandated for other health-insurance programs. "The bill didn't give the insurers a lot of flexibility to come out with different products," Ms. Buyse said.
However, Aetna Inc., a large insurer based in Hartford, Conn., hailed the plan as "a common-sense approach to addressing the single-greatest strain on the health-care system — the uninsured." The company praised Massachusetts' effort to require health insurance for people 19 to 26 years old, whom Aetna refers to as "the invincibles" because so many skip insurance in the belief they won't need health care. Massachusetts made a special provision for $150-a-month health insurance for that group that is expected to offer limited benefits.
Stephen Weiner, a lawyer in the Boston firm of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo who represents hospitals, said that insurers "aren't sure yet" whether they can produce affordable policies — and may end up trying to cut medical costs. "I see problems for hospitals, because insurers will want to negotiate lower rates overall," he said.
p.A4
BOSTON — The nation's most comprehensive healthcare reform effort became law Wednesday as Gov. Mitt Romney signed a bill that would assure near-universal health insurance for Massachusetts residents.
The measure followed a year of negotiations between the Republican governor and the overwhelmingly Democratic state Legislature, and was swiftly heralded as a national model. Insurance providers and health experts also took part in deliberations that will require all state residents to purchase health insurance by July 2007.
"An achievement like this comes around once in a generation, and it proves that government can work when people of both parties reach across the aisle for the common good," Romney said Wednesday as he signed the bill in a ceremony at historic Faneuil Hall.
"Today," the governor said, "Massachusetts is leading the way with health insurance for everyone, without a government takeover and without raising taxes."
But Romney exercised his line-item veto power to overturn eight portions of the bill, including a $295-per-worker assessment on businesses that was seen as essential to the bill.
Some critics described the fee as a tax on business, and in call-in radio shows over the weekend many small-business owners told the governor that the assessment was a burden. In vetoing the provision, Romney said the fee was "not necessary to implement or finance healthcare reform."
The governor also vetoed a section of the bill that would have extended dental benefits to adult Medicaid recipients, at an annual cost of $75 million.
Legislative leaders have vowed to override Romney's vetoes.
The law targets more than a half-million state residents who have no health insurance. Using a sliding scale, low-income residents will be able to obtain health insurance at greatly reduced costs — and in some cases, at no cost.
State residents who can afford private insurance will face tax penalties if they do not obtain coverage.
The law spreads costs and administrative responsibilities among citizens, employers and the government. But one incentive for drafting the legislation was a brief window in federal funding that would provide $385 million in annual subsidies if the state could reduce its uninsured population.
Private insurance companies will be eligible for government subsidies to increase coverage for children and the working poor.
The measure also creates a health insurance "connector" to link businesses and individuals with insurance providers.
The bill is expected to cost $316 million the first year, rising to more than $1 billion by the third year. Much of the money will come from federal reimbursements and existing state spending.
The near-universal health insurance bill is considered a coup for Romney, who is not seeking reelection, but who is likely to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. States across the country are closely watching the Massachusetts model to see if the bold attempt at reform will work.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a frequent Romney critic, stood beside the governor Wednesday to praise his state for devising the country's most inclusive health insurance program.
"With the signing of this landmark health reform bill, after so many years of false starts, our actions have finally matched our words and we have lived up to our ideals," Kennedy said. "You have given Massachusetts just what the doctor ordered."
It was the first time the two men had shared a stage at Faneuil Hall since Romney unsuccessfully tried to unseat Kennedy in 1994. The governor, for his part, used the occasion to quip: "Having Sen. Kennedy and me together on the same stage and behind the same piece of landmark legislation will help slow global warming — because hell has frozen over."
source: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-health13apr13,1,6570021.story?coll=la-news-a_section 13apr2006
|
To
send us your comments, questions, and suggestions click
here |