Posted: Friday, April 14, 2006 12:00 am
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney signed into law this week a bill that brings that state the closest yet to having universal health care. The plan requires every resident to have health insurance, spreading the cost between citizens, business owners and government.
It/s a bold experiment 7 and one that may not work. It also could be a model for other states and perhaps even the federal government to follow, but that may have to wait.
For one thing, Massachusetts is a small state, with a relatively small population of residents without health care coverage, about 550,000.
In contrast, California had 6.3 million uninsured residents in a 2001 survey, and it/s safe to say that number has grown dramatically in the five years since that census was completed. In the context of extrapolating the Massachusetts program throughout the United States, bear in mind that America has an estimated 46 million people without health care insurance.
And you have to wonder just how local Massachusetts/ program will be. One reason a Republican governor and Democratic Legislature could agree on a plan is that the federal government is kicking in more than ,300 million a year to help pay for the Massachusetts plan. So when skeptics say the plan is “universal,C what they really mean is that its cost is being spread across a federal base, using revenues from millions of U.S. taxpayers.
There are other bumps in the road. Romney used his line-item veto powers to cut some features from the final version of the bill, vetoes Democrats in the Legislature say they will fight to override. So, as usual in the world of politics, it isn/t over >til it/s over 7 at least not in Massachusetts.
California attempted such an all-encompassing plan in 2003 when the Legislature passed a bill that required health care insurance. Voters shot it down via a ballot initiative the next year.
Requiring everyone to have health insurance is not without precedence. Nearly every state requires car owners to have auto insurance. How is health care less important than making sure a dent gets fixed?
At the very least, the Massachusetts plan should help start a national debate on universal health care.
April 14, 2006