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99.8% of Massachusetts children now covered by health insurance
By adamg on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 7:19am
CommonHealth takes a look at the state's latest health-insurance coverage numbers - and whether the state could do even more to ensure universal coverage.
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Comments
Good news but
Isn't it really sad that this is news instead of just the way it's supposed to be?
What a world..
A statistic any politician could be proud of...yet Romney will run from it and continue to call for the death of Iranian children as he sabre rattles to rile up the Fox watchers.
No kidding you have 98%
You put a gun to everybody's head, you morons. Nothing to beat your chest about.
I paid $117 a month for worthless Celticare. When I had a problem with my eye last year, they wouldn't pay a nickel for it, claiming "Brighton Eye Associates isn't in our network." Are you (expletive) kidding me? I didn't go to some frickin' witch doctor in the African bush, I saw a lady in Boston. I stopped paying them, let it lapse...and now the Commonwealth wants to fine me $58 a month for not voluntarily letting myself get ripped off.
I'm going to give more of my money to the General Fund this year because I'm not interested in propping up some legislator's health care executive friends. You're welcome.
I'd have thought personal
I'd have thought personal responsibility would carry a little more weight with you small-government types. Like your personal responsibility to find a doctor in your plan before you receive care, like the rest of the people in Massachusetts who have a health plan. If you don't like the result of your own mistake, that is no fault of the plan, nor are you getting ripped off. You're just guilty of making a mistake.
Okay
So I should not only be forced to pay $136 a month for something I don't need or want, but I should also stop patronizing the eye doctor I want to see because the company with which I'm forced to do business won't refund MY money? In what reality do you think that's acceptable?
Who said acceptable?
I don't actually care if you're forced to buy coverage you don't want or need. You made a mistake in choosing care and now want to blame it on someone else. You have choices in plan, choices in coverage, and choices in where you receive care. You made bad choices.
You're right, I do have choices
And they're all terrible.
I paid $486 in premiums in last year. None of that was returned to me, except for maybe $60 worth of eye medication that was covered. So I paid $426 for somebody else's care. Maybe some nice old lady got some medicine on my dime...whatever. Fine by me.
But the jig is up. I let it lapse in May. You need help from me, I'm paying $58 extra per month to the General Fund now.
Again, the fact that you do
Again, the fact that you do not take advantage of the care you are paying for isn't anyone's fault but your own.
Furthermore, $58/month is nearly $700 per year, which is more than $200 more than you were paying for your wasted premium. Not only do you not understand the basic concepts of personal responsibility, but you seem to have some difficulties with personal finance.
But please do not let that stop you from paying down the state's debt. Just don't come crying to the taxpayer if some unforeseen circumstance lands you in the ER. Cash up front. And be warned, that shit is expensive, so you should start saving now.
Of course I don't take advantage of it!
I'm not sick! Do you go to the grocery store when your fridge is full? Do you go to the gas station when your tank is full?
The premium amount I paid in 2011 was for three months. When Celticare decided not to pay me, I stopped paying them, and let my coverage lapse. The fine amount is far less than the minimum premium available to me.
Believe me, sir, I understand personal responsibility. That's not what we're arguing here.
I have $62,000 in liquid assets. I will hold my hat out to no one.
We're not talking about costs for goods and services, though
Health insurance is just that. Insurance. It is a hedge against the days that you will need that coverage. If you plan of never getting sick in your life, then fine, you grow your 62k as high as you want.
But comparing the necessity for health care coverage to putting gas in a full tank is complete horseshit as a comparison. You aren't paying for goods or services rendered, you are paying into a system that amortizes your care across the care of all the other payers in the system. Some years you will use less, but there is a certainty that at some point in your life you will need more. Not recognizing that is incredibly short sighted.
Also, perhaps you don't recognize the need for a yearly physical. The cash-up-front cost for a physical and labs in Massachusetts can be as little as $350 and as high as $1000, depending on tests. Most would fall between $400 and $500. That is a quarter of your premium, just for preventative care.
Do you change the oil in your car even if the gas light isn't on?
$500 for a physical?
That's why I don't get 'em. I really can't remember the last time I did either. Maybe 1995?
waiver?
Are you willing to sign a form refusing any and all medical care above what you can afford?
I would support you getting a pass from Mass health regs if that's the case.
Yes, I will support a waiver
And if I were to exhaust my liquidity in paying for care, I will simply pay for the care with assets that I earn later in life. If that's not a suitable option for my provider, then get one of Kevorkian's machines and hook me up.
And when you're dying from a preventable, undiagnosed illness
the government will not have to pay to put your lazy, rotting carcass back together. That's the point, rugged individualist man.
Oh I see, so you are Dr. Will
Oh I see, so you are Dr. Will LaTulippe and are able to self-diagnose! Do you know what your cholesterol is?
The concept of insurance seems to escape you
I paid life insurance premiums all year last year and never got a nickel back in benefits. Was my premium a complete waste of money?
What you got last year, in return for your premium, even though you didn't use any covered services, was reduced financial risk.
You can look at your auto insurance premium as "covering someone else's accident" or you can look at it as protecting you from financial risk.
What if you get sick?
Your $62K in liquid assets will be gone in a week or two if anything goes seriously wrong with your health. After that, the rest of us are on the hook for your care. If there were some enforceable way for you to waive that, such that the hospital could dump you out into the street after the money was gone, then I'd be entirely happy to have you not provide for yourself through insurance. But since that isn't the case, I think it's entirely reasonable for the rest of us, those of us who will end up paying for your care, to require that you take some responsibility for the cost by buying insurance.
Huh?
Well, I certainly don't wait until I'm stranded on the side of a deserted road at 2am to get gas, and that's exactly what you're doing if you think that because you're "healthy" you don't need insurance.
I was "healthy" too until last July when my knee fell apart while I was jogging - to keep myself healthy, of course. Until then, I hadn't been admitted to a hospital since I was six years old, but suddenly I needed $30,000 worth of surgery, pain meds and rehab. Thankfully, I paid less than $1,000 total BECAUSE I HAD HEALTH INSURANCE. The $29,000 that was covered works out to more than 20 years of $117/mo payments. That's what we call a bargain.
In all seriousness, please go get a physical. Going without any care for that long is exactly how people wind up dying from skin cancer that started as a freckle.
Great summary
The above post/rant looks like a poor personal decision. I would love to go to the doctors next to my house but if they aren't in my network, I'm out of luck.
I might have to get my wisdom teeth out and you know what I'm doing? I'm having my dentist submit a mock bill to the insurer to see what insurance will cover. I won't be rant and raving either way.
I am very proud of Massachusetts for this accomplishment. There are a lot of issues to work out, but action has been taking.
I wonder why nobody talks about this in terms of supporting entrepreneurship in Massachusetts? In this state, you can afford to work at a startup or start a small business and get inexpensive healthcare coverage. Makes it a little easier to strike out on your own.
You're too lazy to figure
You're too lazy to figure which doctors are in network and which are out? Wow...
(Banging my head against the wall again)
That's not the problem! I was going to go to Brighton Eye no matter who was covering me, since my only consideration in buying insurance THAT I DON'T WANT was to spend as little money as possible. Ergo, I chose the cheapest offering, the Celticare.
And what is it to Celticare? Do they cover no eye doctor at all? Was the $90 a visit I pay Dr. Banek too much for them to pay out? Is that why she's not part of their precious "network?" If so, why not just pay me the maximum amount you pay for any eye doctor in your "network?" If there's a $15 copay, and the highest eye doctor rate in your network is $75, then deduct $60 from $90 and make me pay $30. That would have been fine.
Chronic untreated self-inflicted head injuries
That explains a lot.
You have to ask Dr. Banek why she doesn't accept it
She has a list of insurance she does accept on her website, and CelticCare has a list of eye care providers, including one a few blocks from Brighton Eye Associates.
Any of those would have been fine...
... but that's not the contract you entered into. There are other insurance plans that do exactly what you describe. They cost more. You chose.
Summary
Sheesh
Am I missing something?
Unbelieveable
No, I'm feeling ripped off BECAUSE THE STATE MAKES ME BUY A PRODUCT THAT I PERCEIVE AS HAVING NO VALUE TO ME. What part of that have I not made clear? What do you want me to do, pay for a more expensive product that I don't want just so I can get a refund when I have a mere $270 eye care bill that I don't need help paying?
And see my above response for what I believe Celticare's response should have been.
Now if WASN'T forced to buy health insurance, and then I bought Celticare and then went to a doctor out of "network," I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. But as somebody forced to buy this product, I call shell game. I think they artificially limit the network, because they know we all have to buy the product anyway, and then the company pockets the money.
Leach
To summarize again, Mr. Will is a free rider who would prefer to leach off fellow taxpayers if he ever fell ill and the cost of that care was more than his $60,000 in assets, than take responsibility for contributing to the system that benefits all Massachusetts residents.
Despite all his arguements, the bottom line is that he will not be refused taxpayer financed emergency medical care.
Are you illiterate?
Reload the page, and then CTRL + F the word "Kevorkian."
You say that now but when
You say that now but when Death knocks at your door, you'll be begging and pleading for help from the rest of us. Ergo, freeloader.
Perception problem
I see why you wanted a good eye doctor.
Can you see the value of health insurance now?
#RepublicanLogicfail.
#RepublicanLogicfail.
Double post
xx
Flame war will Will aside. I
Flame war will Will aside. I sympathies his issue. Though based on different reasoning. His issue is based on a personal affront of how he isn't getting what he is paid for.
I will argue based on the issue of how our healthcare program is designed: Our solution to health care is to turn to the very corporations whose interest is to screw us as much as possible to protect us. Regulations can only do so much in face of twisted incentives where a health insurance company have an interest to screw us as much as possible because it would maximize their profits.
There I can see only two truly fair systems there. Either every man-for-themselves type of system that Will advocates, a reasoning that I can understand, but I think I like the other idea better. A system that covers everyone with an organization whose aim is not maximizing profits: singer payer.
Now I know actually other issues with that system too. I heard all about slowness and bureaucracy of other countries. New perverse incentives can arise too if people have the assurance everything they will be financially protect from medical cost. But I believe it is better than the solution where everyone pays into a system where the system seeks to server as minimally as possible. There's ways to create competition without the motivation of profit. The current way doesn't quite do that.
Ms Tulippe, Surely you
Ms Tulippe, Surely you understand that at $117 per month premium you have comprehensive health insurance subsidized by your fellow taxpayers at a fraction of the cost most of us pay. You could at least try to find an eye care provider within the network which would cover most of your costs. Brighton Eye Care hardly has the franchise on good eye care in the Boston area. As you stand on your roof ranting about how much you are aggrieved, don't worry about slipping and falling off because we -and Celtic Care - will cover your medical costs.
Here's a link to a graphic
Here's a link to a graphic that shows why our system is f-ed up.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/03/comparing-med...
We are attacked by a health care system where the cost are much higher than other countries and a health insurance system where their best interest is to do as little protecting as possible while taking as much money from us as possible.
Will's example is to me another symptom. Obviously that if he is going to taking insurance, he would like to have one of the insurers to be one that does cover Brighton Eye. Maybe Will just didn't done his homework, but is it deniable that many companies don't offer that many options or present them well.
If the health care cost just was more in-line with rest of the world or even just reduce to just a bit above the rest with a cost provider system that works to protect rather than profit, I think things like Brighton Eye would happen much less.
If you don't like it... move.
.