[lbo-talk] state by state single payer

Itamar Turner-Trauring (aka Shtull-Trauring) itamar at itamarst.org
Wed Oct 21 08:03:18 PDT 2009


On Wed, 2009-10-21 at 09:06 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Oct 21, 2009, at 7:10 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> > at work, a guy who likes to read Drudge, told me that the Mass
> > system has driven the doctors out of the state.
>
> Himmelstein says Mass General is making big money. The real problem is
> that people are forced to buy a basic package - $4,000 a year with a
> $4,000 deductible. You have to lay out $8,000 before the insurance
> kicks in!

You actually have a choice of plans with different deductibles, and it depends on your age; if you're 27 you can choose to "only" pay $3000 or so and get a more reasonable deductible.

On the plus side:

1. Signing up and comparing plans is super easy (https://www.mahealthconnector.org/)

2. If you are self-employed your insurance premium under the new law is dramatically lower because you can get the equivalent of group rates now.

3. There are subsidies for the poor and unemployed (though the latter funding is about to run out, and the bureaucracy often screws people over due to slowness of handling claims).

4. The insurance companies can't reject you for existing conditions.

It's still stupid and hugely inefficient compared to single payer (my sister in Israel pays orders of magnitude less, for better service, even adjusted for living costs). But it's probably better than what Mass had before.



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