Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

The Real Problem of Covering the ‘Uninsured’, Pt.10 – Less cost and better health.

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‘Free-riding’ refers to those who have no health insurance (voluntary or otherwise), just show up at the ER for non-emergencies to get the ‘free’ (but very costly) ‘safety-net’ medical treatment provided for by law (when someone has no health insurance). Certain groups of medical treatment providers have been thriving on this loophole for years and still very much are. Once it was established that everyone was mandated to have their own health insurance, it was deemed that there was no excuse for anyone showing up at the ER for non-emergencies any more. Neither was there further need to continue funding this very inefficient and costly practice.

The savings started rolling in forthright. The state implemented a schedule to stop funding all these ‘safety-net’ providers. Of course, there was much whimpering by the few medical providers who had getting rich from all this and they immediately launched their own anti-campaign to try and defeat the whole universal health insurance/care initiative. But the State of Massachusetts had already anticipated this resistance and had resolved to see it through. The savings were substantial and the first major objective of the Massachusetts health insurance/care model was deemed a success.

As far as tangible health benefits, there turned out to be a spectro-benefit. There were immediate medical benefit results but, perhaps, the greatest success is the spawning of an ever-blossoming healthy population. On the proactive side of things, it was expected that this, alone, could prove to become the single-most important benefit of the whole universal health insurance/care philosophy.

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