All is not well in the state of Massachusetts, site of the pilot program for national healthcare mandate experimentation. In the last year, SMALL BUSINESS premium hikes have risen 20-45% prompting many of them to lay off huge numbers of older workers or close.
Insurers in Massachusetts blame the health care industry. They have been refusing to answer questions on the hikes.
Massachusetts regulators have been trying to get the health care industry, insurers, etc. to show up at hearings called to interrogate them as to what justification they might have for the hikes, but only two of them showed up at the first meeting.
This mess has been the subject of several articles last week in the Boston Globe.
Its clear that the industry knows that they have the nation, not just the state, by the throat. Why should they need to answer questions now?
Price fixing has been a huge problem in Massachusetts, with the hospital industry and insurers working together.
Columbia Journalism Review has been a good source of commentary on the mess in Massachusetts caused by the states dependence on insurance industry to serve the public interest.
"With rising health care costs burdening the country, Governor Deval Patrick’s attempt to find out what can be done about them is being met with resounding silence from many of the state’s health care executives.
Leaders of some of the state’s largest hospitals failed to show up at a public hearing yesterday to answer regulators’ questions about what is driving up costs. A month earlier, officials of the state’s major insurance companies testified at an earlier set of hearings, but refused to answer many key questions.
The hearings on hospital costs, which conclude Tuesday, are part of a three-month probe by the Patrick administration that started as an investigation into the reasons for the disproportionately high health insurance rates paid by small businesses, but has since mushroomed into a larger, systemwide inquiry.
Leaders from just two of the 17 hospitals or hospital networks invited to testify yesterday appeared at the hearing: Cambridge Health Alliance and Emerson Hospital in Concord."
It might be interesting to hear Michelle Obama's perspective on this issue. Mrs. Obama is an executive for a hospital firm, on temporary leave of absence.
Paying for maternity services of all kinds would be free under single payer.
How about an addition.. with a bit of irony thrown in.
How about a 50% excise tax on all for profit adoptions, (average $50k profit) and/or an export tariff on infant children, (babies are a big $$$ export now) that is used to pay for free condoms (for anyone who wants them) that would pay for live-in maternity services so poor or very young potentially homeless (under 18) women can legally, supportively keep their babies or get transportation to abortions, whichever THEY choose. This would only impact baby sellers, and help everybody else.