Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Assessing Obama’s Divergence From McCain, Pt.2 – Preventive and ‘no free riders’ savings.

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Assigning the correct levels from the get-go proves illusive because a health insurance/care concept like this has never been done before. It is understood that initial costs of a radically new health insurance/care system should be higher than the settling point. One major contingency not yet settled, is the substantial savings projected to be gained by the tremendous preventive care initiatives afforded by everyone having health insurance. It is projected that early treatment will cut late treatment costs down to only one-quarter of what they are now. But it takes a few years to measure the effect of future delayed treatment.

A second facet of cost savings is what Mr. Romney, a founder of the Massachusetts model, calls ‘free riding’. We do have some significant preliminary results with which to hone in on that future settling point. One of the greatest inefficiencies in our system today is the effect of people with no health insurance just showing up at the Emergency Room for routine visits, because they can’t be turned away. Some of these ‘free riders’ are simply abusing the system, while others are so destitute, they have no choice. In both cases, however, this has proven to be one of the most costly misapplications we face. Unlike Mr. Obama’s current health insurance/care proposal, Massachusetts mandates that all residents secure health insurance and is as close to universal health insurance as any we’ve ever had.

Because of this, Massachusetts can legitimately curtail further ‘free riding’ subsidies because there is no excuse for not having health insurance. ‘Boom, free riding gone’, as Mr. Romney phrases it. The results, even at this early stage are becoming measurable. One straggling problem is still stringing along, however. This is treated in the next paragraph as part of the largest problem. That is, there has always been a thriving network of medical providers who have benefited from this gross inefficiency and they are no longer getting funded by the government ‘safety-net’ provision. They still want the money anyway and are putting up a fight.

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