By Liz Kowalczyk
Boston Globe
July 20, 2005
Two Boston University professors plan today to release a report critical of Governor Mitt Romney’s health-care plan, arguing that it does not address the state’s soaring medical costs and that it does not provide full insurance coverage to everyone.
Professors Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar, directors of the university’s Health Reform Program, will testify at a legislative hearing focused on alternatives to the governor’s plan, which would require most uninsured Massachusetts residents to buy health insurance.
The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m., and will be chaired by Representative Patricia Walrath, cochairwoman of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing and Democrat from Stow. Discussions will focus on two bills that propose a single-payer health care system, also called universal health care, and a third that would redirect money from the cigarette excise tax and the national settlement with tobacco companies into health education and cancer prevention programs.
In a single-payer system, all residents would be covered under one umbrella, run by the government or some other entity. Essentially, Romney wants instead to expand the system of public and private coverage to provide insurance to about 500,000 Massachusetts residents who do not have it.
Romney has said he wants to make coverage less expensive by permitting insurers to offer low-cost policies with scaled-back benefits. People making too little to afford those plans and making too much to qualify for Medicaid would be eligible for state subsidies to help them buy insurance. Medicaid would remain in place for the poorest state residents unable to afford private insurance.
Residents who do not get health insurance would face tax penalties, and the garnishing of their wages, to cover care.
Today, Romney plans to announce more details of another component of his plan, called Safety Net Care, and to file legislation. The proposal would take the more than $1 billion a year that the state, health plans, and hospitals contribute to the so-called ”free care pool,” which pays for medical care for some uninsured residents, and to use it to help buy insurance for the residents.
Another approach being pushed by a coalition, including the nonprofit organization Health Care for All, would force most employers to cover workers.
Sager said that Massachusetts residents and insurers spent $2,176 per person in 2003 on hospital care alone, 41 percent higher than the national average.
”We don’t think [Romney’s] plan seriously attacks any of the causes of high health costs,” Sager said in an interview. ”We don’t think a single-payer is a cure-all. But it cuts a lot of administrative waste quickly by reducing complexity and provides the right foundation for squeezing out clinical waste.”
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