Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Mass. Medical Model Shines, Pt.4 – Not quite out-of-the-water yet.

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This health insurance initiative, however, is not out of the water yet. There is still a prime concern as to whether the economics will pay off. The program has only survived by means of federal funding. Up to now, billions of dollars have been provided in the form of ‘special assistance’ in this health insurance effort, beginning with the Bush Administration as Mitt Romney explains. These grants have to be renewed each year, while also, the numbers keep going up, health insurance enrollees as well as dollars required. More and more of enrollees have been reached but, of course, at greater expense.

Negotiations between the Massachusetts administrators and federal authorities are said to be fragile and some fear the future of this experimental program may be entering into tenuous territory. Massachusetts' secretary of Health and Human Services is Dr. JudyAnn Bigby. Her outlook is that the continual success they’ve been able to show, especially with the growing number of health insurance enrollments is hoped to “bolster the state's case with the federal government.” She believes that all this success proves what a good health insurance/care system model this is, both for Massachusetts and elsewhere.

In an interview, Dr. ‘JudyAnn’ shared that the ultimate premise of this health insurance/care reform was that, once these uninsured masses acquired health insurance, even if by funding, they would received comprehensive preventive care. This would have the end result of actually reducing the expense of their latter care by avoiding the much more costly ‘late diagnosis’ effect. That is, after time went by, funding expenses would continually decline. This has already been proven with the reduction of ‘free-riders’. Over time, further savings should be appreciated by ‘less maintenance’ for the sick, overall.

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