Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Mass. Health, A Creator Explains, Pt.6 – Mitt’s recommendations.

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The new model health insurance/care system is still under attack by critics who contend that “It costs too much”. To this, Mitt has some answers. These are some of Mitt’s recommendations to reduce the, still problematic, over-costs for the:

• Everyone in the plan should be required to pay something for health insurance: This was Mr. Romney’s original plan. He was over-ridden by the state legislature. They believed the health insurance should be awarded free to those in poverty (earning less than the federal poverty level. Mitt believes that this leaves the door wide open for abuse. If it’s free, there would be many who take it for granted and even over-use it. This will, of course, drive costs up.
   
•  The subsidized benefits of the Commonwealth Care premium costs should be re-evaluated periodically and adjusted both for budget purposes and to reduce abuse and be fair to all.
   
• Revise obsolete mandates: Being overly cautious, the legislature decided not to touch the state’s existing health insurance mandates until the program got going. Some of the old mandates don’t ‘fit’ any more. Things like ‘unlimited in vitro fertilization’ were never the intention of the plan, but can run-away with cost containment. This hurts both the plan and the public. It also served to ‘freeze’ the mandate updating process. Now that the plan is successfully under-way, the state leaders need to revise all of the mandates and ‘unfreeze’ the update process. This is another good way to reduce plan costs.

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