Marie-Grace Turner of the Galen Institute, one of the best health-care analysts out there, has done a remarkable study of the failing health care system in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts mess should matter to all of us.
“Massachusetts and the federal government built their reform efforts using similar architectural plans — strict regulation of health insurance, mandates on individuals and businesses, expensive new taxpayer-funded subsidies, and a major expansion of Medicaid — and both share a central structural flaw in failing to address rising health costs,” Marie-Grace Turner writes.
A highlight from Turner’s bullet-points on the monster costs in Massachusetts:
“On average, health insurance now costs $14,723 for a family of four in Massachusetts, compared to $13,027 nationally. That’s nearly 12 percent higher than the national average. Reform has not made insurance more affordable,” Turner notes.
“[S]ome small Massachusetts employers are dropping health insurance and sending their workers into the taxpayer-funded health insurance pool. They say they have no choice because of relentlessly rising costs. This spells trouble for taxpayers.”
According to Turner, the Massachusetts system shows “the near impossibility of containing costs in a system where incentives go in exactly the opposite direction.”
Read the whole thing.