AFL-CIO President Criticizes Massachusetts Health Care Law

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 19 Apr 2006 - 5:00 PDT

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AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said a recently enacted Massachusetts law that requires residents to have health insurance "provides little hope for middle-class families" and "sends the wrong message to other states looking for answers to their own health care crises," CQ HealthBeat reports. Sweeney said the law would provide subsidies only to lower-income state residents to help cover the cost of the health insurance, adding, "Universal health care should mean ... affordable health care for all, not just for the top and the bottom." In addition, Sweeney criticized Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) for his decision to veto a provision that would have required employers in the state with 10 or more employees to provide health insurance or pay an annual fee of $295 per worker. According to Sweeney, the fee is "meager" compared with the amount most families would have to pay for health insurance, "but, in Romney's eyes, even that was too much to ask of his business friends" (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 4/14).

Incentives for Smokers
The Boston Globe on Sunday examined a provision in the law that provides incentives for people with private insurance or Medicaid to quit smoking and meet other wellness goals. Medicaid beneficiaries who fulfill wellness goals like undergoing smoking cessation or obtaining cancer screenings will receive discounts on health plan premiums and copayments. The state Department of Public Health will determine the specific goals and discounts. The state will spend $14 million over two years on smoking-cessation programs for Medicaid beneficiaries. Iowa and Michigan also have programs that encourage healthy behavior for Medicaid beneficiaries, according to the Globe. Private health insurers will be allowed to charge higher premiums to beneficiaries who smoke. In addition, the law lifts a 5% cap on the size of discounts allowed for privately insured beneficiaries who complete weight-loss programs, enroll in exercise classes and complete other wellness goals. Private insurance policies sold to small groups will be eligible for discounts and penalties. The changes also will affect up to 400,000 uninsured residents who will buy low-cost plans under the new law. The state Division of Insurance has been directed under the law to develop policy details, such as how insurers can confirm that beneficiaries have stopped smoking (Kowalczyk, Boston Globe, 4/16).

Editorials

• New York Times: "Massachusetts deserves credit for tackling a problem that Washington is failing to address," a Times editorial states. "By forcing all residents to assume responsibility for their own health coverage, Massachusetts should largely solve" the "free-rider" problem, in which the uninsured "get very expensive care without paying" (New York Times, 4/15).
  
  
• Salt Lake Tribune: The Massachusetts Legislature and Romney "deserve credit for being the first to finally do something concrete to address a national crisis," a Tribune editorial states. The Massachusetts law "will require years of fine-tuning" and might "prove too costly" or "too unwieldy," but the legislation "is by far the best plan out there requiring universal health coverage -- since there is no other" (Salt Lake Tribune, 4/16).

Opinion Pieces

• Marcia Angell, Boston Globe: "Like the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the Massachusetts health care plan is a complicated morass that might limp along for a while, but will never cover all the people it is meant to cover," Angell, a former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, writes in a Globe opinion piece. She adds that the Massachusetts law "will become increasingly unaffordable" (Angell, Boston Globe, 4/17).
  
  
• Philip Johnston/Nancy Turnbull, Boston Globe: Some questions raised about the Massachusetts law are "legitimate," such as whether the legislation is affordable and whether health insurers can "develop plans that are low cost yet provide real coverage," Johnston, chair of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, and Turnbull, president of the foundation, write in a Globe opinion piece. According to Johnston and Turnbull, "With continued strong collaboration and leadership, Massachusetts can be the first state to show the nation that we can achieve health security for all" (Johnston/Turnbull, Boston Globe, 4/16).
  
  
• Robert Kuttner, Boston Globe: Many "key details" of the Massachusetts law "have been left to regulations to be written by the next governor," Kuttner, co-editor of the American Prospect, writes in a Globe opinion piece. He adds, "How to make the system work should be a major issue in the gubernatorial campaign" (Kuttner, Boston Globe, 4/15).
  
  
• Joan Vennochi, Boston Globe: Romney "snatched nearly all the credit for addressing a classic Democratic issue" with the enactment of the Massachusetts law, but he likely will not "accept all the blame" in the event the legislation "fails to deliver on its promise," columnist Vennochi writes in a Globe opinion piece. "Romney shouldn't be demonized, but his role in this legislation deserves to be demythified," Vennochi writes (Vennochi, Boston Globe, 4/16).

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