Romney Care: Massachusetts health insurance reform

Romney Care: Pros and Cons

The RomneyCare program has both its advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Advantages include the fact that 63% of Massachusetts residents support the Romneycare Massachusetts health care insurance reform law which mandates that all citizens of Massachusetts obtain minimal government health-care insurance coverage. More than half of the residents of Massachusetts have been pleased with the results of the law according to a survey conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health (The Economist, 2011). This is partly due to the political climate which has offered high benefits.

The results of Romneycare show, too, that in 2004, health spending per person, was $6,683, which was higher than the average of all states. True that insurance coverage has long been higher even before Romney Care was introduced. Even at the time of the reform, the number of uninsured in MA was only 6.4% compared with a national 15.8%, but the law succeeded in expanding health coverage still further both under the auspices of Mr. Romney and under the auspices of his successor, Deval Patrick. The law succeeded in encouraging more people to sign up for health insurance. In fact, in 2010 only 1.9% of residents lacked health insurance. These are the clear advantages of the program.

On the other hand, the disadvantages are many.

Disadvantages

Average monthly premiums increased by 12% between 2006 and 2008, and even though a higher percentage of firms than before are now offering health insurance, they have shifted prices for their employees. Part of the problem is that low reimbursement rates for MassHealth (the program for the poor) has caused some hospitals to shift more costs onto the privately insured, whilst hospitals are also using their influence to push up prices. Moreover, possession of health insurance does not mean access to doctor as residents of MA have discovered. Approximately, 20% of working age adults (this is one in five) have difficulty finding a doctor. So possessing health coverage, in other words, does not indicate receiving quality medical treatment or, in fact, any treatment altogether.

The Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, otherwise known as the Health Connector, is the individual who was placed in charge to ascertain that all residents received insurance plans. His role was to act as insurance broker to offer private plans to individuals, whilst residents who failed to comply were penalized with higher taxes. As of March 2011, however, only 3, 644 workers bought coverage via their employers. The Connector has succeeded in persuading private individuals to buy heath care insurance, but has a harder time persuading small business and other industries or corporations to buy his brokerage.

More significantly, the subsidized health programs costs were respectively 32% and 11% above projection in 2008 and 2009 ($628m in 2008 and $805m in 2009 ) whilst costs for MassHealth rose by 40% between 2006-2010. It was true that the figure dropped from $652 billion in 2006 to $414m in 2009, but this was not steep enough for critics of the system. The system was simply becoming too expensive. It may have been this that resulted in the fact that uninsured hospital visits increased 14% in 2010 with hospital visits reaching 800,000 in that year. For some reason, still to be discovered, despite the accessibility and mandate of health insurance not all are signing up for the coverage.