Massachusetts Health Care Reform — Near-Universal Coverage at What Cost? That’s the title of an article in the November 19th, 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.The authors of the piece, Joel S Weissman, PhD. and JudyAnn Bigby, MD, work for the the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services. You can read the article for yourself (it’s available to all), though it’s so vague that your not likely to take much away from it. Their last paragraph is of interest.
In Massachusetts, achieving near-universal coverage was the right first step, providing thousands of residents with access to care and protection against financial uncertainty due to medical bills. Now, tackling costs has risen to the top of the agenda. As we move toward national health care reform, we must balance individuals’ needs for high-quality care with the obligation to be socially and fiscally responsible.
What do you think the translation of this bit of bureaucratic code-speak into simple English is?
As Spock said “The needs of the many out weight the needs of the few” Sounds very socialistic to me.
More taxes……what else??? The more complicated the better.
Now a simpletoness like me came up with an idea I think would be effective on several levels. Forget tort reform. Congress is whored out to trial lawyers. So how about a value added tax on sugar?? Consumption of sodas alone is massive. And each step of processing adds more tax. For the responsible people who just need a nudge, health would improve so they would need less care, and the irresponsible would subsidize it. Think of the improvement in dental health alone!!
Operafilly