<http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/4198> Mass. 'Universal' Health Plan Already Falling Short by Megan Tady
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Last Friday, a subcommittee of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority (the Connector), reviewed insurance company proposals for Minimum Credit Coverage – plans that are the cheapest consumers can purchase.
Disappointed by the high costs of the minimum insurance plans—which average around $340 to $380 per month—the Connector told insurers to "sharpen their pencils and come back with more affordable options," said Joe Landolfi, spokesperson for Connector chair Leslie Kirwan.
But critics of the State's plan have been warning the government that universal health care achieved through the requirement to buy private insurance will lead to bloated premiums and bare-bones coverage for middle-income residents who can only afford the minimum plans.
"We should not let these board members get away with telling us that they're surprised [about the costs for the minimum plans]," said Steffie Woolhandler, a physician at Cambridge Hospital and the co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, a nonprofit organization pushing for comprehensive national health plan.
On 1/29/07, Jim Straub <rustbeltjacobin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Seriously though, the internal strategic machinations are all about winning
> universal hc; there will be a lot of massachusettes and california style
> things supported in the interim though while we build for that fight,
Incrementalism would make sense if organized labor were getting bigger and more powerful incrementally, but the opposite is the case. According to our moderator's calculation, private-sector union density "goes to 0% in late 2031/early 2032" (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20070122/001753.html>).
Don't postpone the fight for single-payer health care till organized labor disappears into nothingness. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>