Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

The Proactive Health Care Approach, Pt.12 – Simple arithmetic???

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This approach is not without contest, however. Mr. Holtz-Eakin is countering, “Who pays the bill?” "The simple arithmetic is, at the moment, there are about 50 million people uninsured. Congressional health insurance for an individual is about $7000.” Mr. Holtz-Eakin estimates that to cost around $350 billion a year. Even an elementary student can punch this in. That’s 7,000 times 50,000,000 = 350,000,000,000. However, a much higher standard should be demanded of a professional than an elementary student. Does he ‘ass-ume’ that all 50 million (more like 47 million) will be covered totally free and not contribute anything? Does he assume that buying health insurance in volume like that won’t lower average cost? Professionals are accountable for what they ‘assume. Has Mr. Holtz-Eakin done any homework on the most successful health insurance model, where a similar undertaking was performed in Massachusetts? (Read the results presented in “Mass. Effort in Good Health on 1st Birthday”)

• 97,000 residents were considered to be able to buy health insurance.
• 62,000 residents still couldn’t afford it, even with the subsidies due to health problems or insufficient income.
• 9,000 residents were exempted for religious reasons.

That’s 58% who bought their own health insurance, 37% who still couldn’t afford health insurance and 5% who were exempted. So only 37% actually needed total subsidizing. Extending these percentages to national scale, 37% of 47 million is less than 17.4 million. That, times the improbable $7,000 would only be $122 billion. But wait, there’s much more. Because of this highly proactive Massachusetts initiative, there are substantial savings in other areas. Mitt Romney, co-creator of this noble project, has assessed the results on the first birthday of the fully operational program. (For a detailed summary, please refer to “Mass. Health, A Creator Explains”)

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