The Maryland Public Policy Institute
JULY 19, 2010
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Even though a majority of Marylanders are happy with the new federal health care legislation, there are signs of trouble ahead. The law on which it was modeled, the Massachusetts health plan, is having significant problems, which does not bode well for ObamaCare.
As the Boston Globe repots, “The relentlessly rising cost of health insurance is prompting some small Massachusetts companies to drop coverage for their workers and encourage them to sign up for state-subsidized care instead, a trend that, some analysts say, could eventually weigh heavily on the state’s already-stressed budget.” Burdensome state regulations have driven up the cost of insurance and forcing employees onto taxpayer-funded subsidized health care makes sense for businesses. The exact same dynamic is going to be at work with ObamaCare.
Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson points out other problems with the legislation. For instance, the Massachusetts plan was supposed to reduce emergency room usage. As Samuelson notes, “Emergency rooms remain as crowded as ever; about a third of the non-elderly go at least once a year, and half their visits involve ‘non-emergency conditions.’”
The program is also hugely expensive to the state:
Aside from squeezing take-home pay (employers provide almost 70 percent of insurance), higher costs have automatically shifted government priorities toward health care and away from everything else -- schools, police, roads, prisons, lower taxes. In 1990, health spending represented about 16 percent of the state budget, says the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. By 2000, health's share was 22 percent. In 2010, it's 35 percent. About 90 percent of the health spending is Medicaid.
The problems in Massachusetts should be a warning to those who think ObamaCare is good legislation. As the people of the Bay State are finding out, health care legislation that is supposed to control costs, expand access, and not be a burden on the budget has turned out to be a failure on all fronts. Unfortunately, the nation will soon be experiencing the health care woes of Massachusetts.
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