Apr 052006
Massachusetts has passed a law to mandate health care coverage for nearly all of its residents. As the New York Times notes, the legislation has elements that should appeal to both sides of the political aisle. Conservatives will like the emphasis on personal responsibility. The bill requires every Massachusetts resident to obtain health insurance by July 1, 2007. Those who can afford health insurance but do not purchase it by the deadline will be subject to a penalty through the state income tax return. Progressives will cheer the expansion of publicly subsidized health care coverage to children and more affordable coverage for people with low to moderate incomes. Private insurance companies will receive subsidies to provide most of the coverage to the 500,000+ uninsured individuals in Massachusetts.
It is said that the states are America’s laboratories for testing innovative policies. If Massachusetts’ experiment is successful, other states could be convinced of the merits of providing something approximating universal health care coverage for their own residents. And until politicians come to grips with the fact that a single-payer system is the only way to restrain spiraling costs, public-private hybrids like this are probably the next best solution. Of course, the devil is in the details. I don’t envy the policymakers who will need to decide what services to cover, what the deductibles and co-pays will be, how to assure parity between physical and mental health benefits, and so forth. But it’s good to see states tackling universal health care while the federal government remains asleep at the wheel.
