WE Blog

Massachusetts is getting a lot of attention for passing a universal health care plan. And unlike most previous proposals, this plan relies primarily on the private sector.
As Republican Gov. Mitt Romney (in photo) explained in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, part of the plan involves enrolling more people in Medicaid and creating a sliding-scale subsidy for people who are poor but don’t qualify for Medicaid to be able to purchase private insurance. But a big key is insuring people who could afford insurance but who choose not to — typically, young men. To do that, the plan creates lower-cost private insurance policies that have higher deductibles and co-pays and fewer mandated benefits. The state then mandates that all citizens either get health insurance — through Medicaid or a private plan — or demonstrate that they can pay for their own health care.
Romney admits that he doesn’t know whether the plan will really work. I’m skeptical that the state can successfully mandate coverage and enforce it.
But, if it goes as planned, the benefits could be a model for the rest of the nation. As Romney wrote: “Every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance and the costs of health care will be reduced. And we will need no new taxes, no employer mandate and no government takeover to make this happen.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee