Shocker: Massachussetts’ Universal Health Care System Is Failing Miserably

Not a shock to those of us with common sense, of course, but a shock to those utopians who think all of our problems can be solved by government.

The day of reckoning has arrived. Threatened first by rapid early enrollment in its new subsidized insurance program and now by a withering economy, the state’s pioneering overhaul has entered a second, more challenging phase.
Thanks to new taxes and fees imposed last year, the health plan’s jittery finances have stabilized for the moment. But government and industry officials agree that the plan will not be sustainable over the next 5 to 10 years if they do not take significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending.
With Washington watching, the state’s leaders are again blazing new trails. Both Gov. Deval Patrick, Mr. Romney’s Democratic successor, and a high-level state commission have set out to revamp the way public and private insurers reimburse physicians and hospitals.
They want a new payment method that rewards prevention and the effective control of chronic disease, instead of the current system, which pays according to the quantity of care provided. By late spring, the commission is expected to recommend such a system to the legislature.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this new approach to making this abomination more affordable sounds a little scary to me. Instead of paying for the health care citizens want to get, the government is going to control costs by controlling your health. In some ways that’s pretty benign in that it’ll probably be required annual check ups and the like. Not very objectionable except for people like me who don’t like being told what to do. But as budget short falls continue (and they will, because they always do) it’ll get more draconian. Exercise regimens. Bans on tobacco use. Government-approved diets.
Make no mistake about it, those are exactly the sort of things this leads to. Because when we start with the assumption that government should be providing health care, it’s only natural that we progress from there to the government controlling our health. For the sake of keeping costs down.
I prefer freedom to that. It may be imperfect. It may require that we be responsible for paying for our own health care. But better that than some bureaucrat telling you what to eat, when to see the doctor and when to exercise.
On a related note, you conservatives out there who care considering supporting Mitt Romney in his future political endeavors might want to remember that this program started out being called “Romneycare.”