Mandatory Health insurance? Is it a solution to health care?

TAB_RN · Feb 15, 2008

I live in Massachusetts and yes, we have to carry mandatory health insurance. If you do not, you will pay a fine at tax time. This past year, because it is so new, you may have been lucky to only be penalized about $200.00, but next year, they plan to penalize each person over 18 years old about $1,000.00. Still, some people find that this is worth it. When you pay anywhere from $300.00 - $500.00/month for insurance through an employer, it can become very expensive.

I believe that making everyone carry health insurance just helps pay the deficit that is created with free healthcare, and really does nothing more. Some of the cheaper health plans really don't cover anything anyway.

Here are some of the facts:

Massachusetts Mandatory Health Insurance program will provide health coverage as follows for the state's 500,000 uninsured:

-- 100,000 poverty-level residents qualify, but have not yet signed up, for Medicaid. They will be legally required to sign-up. Price Tag: $225 million a year, half to be repaid by the federal government.

-- The incomes of 200,000 resident families are too low to afford health insurance, but they don't qualify for Medicaid. Nationwide, this group comprises about 70% of the 45 million Americans.

Massachusetts plans to partially or fully subsidize health insurance premiums for this group. Those earning between 100% and 300% will pay part of their premiums, calculated on a sliding scale. Those earning 100% of less of the federal poverty level will have their premiums paid by the state.

Price Tag: $720 million a year, initially to be funded by a $1 billion fund already set-aside for uninsured care.

-- The remaining 200,000 uninsured are deemed to be able to afford health insurance, and will be required to do so by 2008 or be assessed substantial annual tax penalties and/or wage garnishments.

I personally do not want socialized medicine. I want to have procedures done when I need them done and not wait ridiculous amounts of time on a waiting list. I don't think there are any real answers to this dilemma, but this is the first state to try this out and see how it will go.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Feb 15, 2008

The Massachusetts mandate system will fail.

The US has longer waiting times on average than countries with UH plans.

lamazeteacher · Apr 20, 2008

I am a pre-nursing student, and am looking at issues surrounding current healthcare. What has recently caught my eye is the controversy over mandatory health insurance, and I have recently read some articles on the issue that have alarmed me. My first thought is that the government has no right to force me to buy a product I have no choice but to purchase, but my second is that it might have positive effects especially for those who are denied care due to health related issues. However, I cannot accept this as a solution to the healthcare predicament; there must be another way to go about this.
As a future nurse, I am concerned on how, if it comes to be, mandatory health insurance will affect my job and taking care of patients. In one of the articles I read from the Los Angeles Times, it said high deductibles discourage patients from getting preventative treatment. I can only assume that making it a requirement to get health care will drive up prices insanely. In the same article it was also stated that in Massachusetts a couple in their fifties with one child had to pay $767 a month for the bare bones plan and that did not include prescription drug coverage. Will people really seek care or treatment, and can they afford it, at those prices? I believe it is wrong to make someone pay so much for healthcare; it may pay my future salary but is it worth it? Health insurance companies are businesses, that I understand, but they need to be taking care of their customers and fulfilling their purpose so that I as a future nurse do not feel the repercussions of not being able to do my job and help persons in need just because their insurance company does feel like paying. In my honest opinion, when I pay insurance I feel like I'm paying for nothing at all--insurance, yeah right, I cannot even be insured that my insurance will cover anything and I am told that is how they all are. How can people get proper health care this way I ask you?!
I understand that to people who cannot get coverage it may seem like a god-send, I have a friend who had cancer and now cannot find anyone to insure her. She is one person who truly needs health insurance to get preventive treatment and cannot get it due to health insurance policies. It does not make sense to not insure people who are the most in need of healthcare. If they pay their rate (a decent one hopefully), they should get care and they should be able to purchase from at least someone. What a good solution may be is to make it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to people who need it. So what if they lose money, people need to be more important than a paycheck. If the government wants to stick its nose in the business of private citizens then they most certainly can bug the health insurance industry into lower rates and better premiums. If people did not have to pay so much and the insurance companies could be counted on for their purpose then, perhaps more people would seek health care treatment more often and therefore be healthier, happier individuals.

Since when doesn't government "stick its nose" where we don't want it? The IRS being a prime example? At least government won't be able to reject those with "previous illnesses", because the politician who wrote that out would promptly lose his/her seat in whatever gorgeous House they're in (if the populace becomes inclined to become actively involved).

I commend you for your concerns and investigation, :yeah:if not for the repugnance you have for government driven responsibilities. CA imposed compulsary car insurance for all drivers (even if unlicensed) for many years, to avoid the serious health and financial consequences their citizens had, of being mowed over by an uninsured driver.

A curious side effect, was that the cost of car insurance went up tremendously when that happened. You'd think over subscription to it, would have lowered the costs by their shear volume..... cars got impossibly expensive, and softer, user friendly bumpers went out, and costs of automobile body repairs soared. Also the waiting areas of "approved" repair places became sumptuous.......

I really don't think the politicians responsible could ever have envisioned the subsequent higher costs of body repairs (did you know that Japan cites drivers of dented cars?); but they could have placed a proviso on the costs of both car insurance and repairs, don't you think?

The same thing happened with health insurance, once people and their employers realized that poverty (and law suits) followed those poor uninsured souls who were felled by accident or preventable illness due to exposure to hazardous substances (don't I wish stressful circumstances, too) at work, and needed the government sponsored "unemployment" and "workers' compensation" benefits. Hence OSHA and training for accident prevention/exposures at work (compulsory for larger companies).

Illness prevention is big business for health insurance companies fearing larger costs than profits today...... they hire nurses to call "members" to assess their illness coping skills and compliance with physicians' "plans of care", strictly adhering to HIPPA (now called "Health Insurance Portability (?huh?)and Protection (I forget what the "A' turned into). You turn around and it changed......Those educational programs are purchased by employers, to keep their premiums down (which go up with employees' ages and serious illnesses- it's much like the "house that Jack built".

One of the problems with the costs of the delivery of health care in our country, is that priorities got squewed, when industrial decorators moved in. Now we have gorgeous hospitals (in the like of which we could never live), which really hasn't been proven to improve patients' recoveries. If I could afford Westin Hotels over Motel 6, I'd stay at the former. However, since healthcare insurance will pay for the latter, healthcare costs go up with the costs of such surroundings, as well as suppliers' improved facilities (would that quality would exceed beauty).

I'm for pretty surroundings in my home, but today's prices really make that unaffordable for me and hospitals with appropriate priorities. So it may mean that hospitals stay clean over sumptuous, when government run financially. Is that a bad thing? Does anyone remember how "county" hospitals looked before they were taken over by profit driven megacorporations?

The maternity departments started looking luxurious, to pull the younger, less expensive set (who are much to busy raising families and working, to look into the travisties in those facilities), and before you knew it, cardiac care and eventually the ER (except to its credit, that TV series' scenes, which stay functional looking, if increasingly lurid due to the popularity of "Grey's Anatomy", which does have the trappings of sumptuosity - expect "ER" to get glitzier). But chins up - grey and green pea walls should never reappear, as those colors are about the same price as more appealing others that could be recommended by shakra- ites, not high priced decorators. :twocents:

So government imposition regulating insurance companies' acceptance of those with prior conditions would have greater ramifications than we could possibly imagine....... :crying2: