Massachusetts Makes Health Insurance Mandatory

Iron Condor writes "Massachusetts is the first state to require its residents to secure health insurance, a plan designed to get as close as practically possible to statewide universal health care. Presidential hopeful and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney originally introduced the idea in 2004. Effective July 1, 2007, the law, which uses federal and state tax dollars, is aimed at making health insurance affordable to all residents of the state, including low-income populations. Those who fall below the federal poverty line may be eligible for health care at no cost."

Comments

Re:Socialised Healthcare is the future for the US

[MemoryDragon]

Well the british healthcare system is known in Europe for being disastrous if you are too old, this is not the norm in Europe this is a british only thing! Generally Europeans are very proud on their healthcare being covered universally, they see it as a logical thing (and christian one) usually you get a very good treatment no matter how old you are, but if you are in GB, shudder!

Too much power given to the wrong people.

[Kadin2048]

Take the total amount spent by US citizens (and employers) per capita compared to what we spend on "evil-socialized-communist" health-care in Canada, you guys spend multiple times as much for a system that sucks.

Here's the problem that I have with the constant U.S./Canada comparisons: how do we know that the same services are being delivered at that price?

I don't think that any country, even Canada, has the range of lifestyle and dietary issues that we have here in the U.S., and which drive a large portion of healthcare costs. Even if the systems were exactly the same in the U.S. and $RANDOM_COUNTRY, what's to say that the per-capita cost would be the same? There are a lot of things that can change costs; it's not like "keeping one person healthy" is some sort of fixed constant.

Furthermore, speaking as an American, I have an idea of how people get when they know their tax money is being spent on something. A publicly-funded, single-payer healthcare system would be an invitation for the government to start regulating all sorts of stuff. People would demand it -- they're not going to want their tax dollars used to pay for "some asshole's smoking habit," or somebody else who likes to drive without a seatbelt, or someone else who likes to go hang-gliding at night.

Perhaps this doesn't happen in other countries with public healthcare. I'm glad to hear it. But America is a basically intolerant country full of intolerant people who love to dictate how the people around them can live their lives. A public healthcare system would be a wonderful bully pulpit that they could use to essentially dictate everything: from what you can eat, to how much exercise you have to do, to what kind of recreation you do -- or you'll lose your only source for health care.

If the difference in per-capita cost between Canada's system and the U.S.'s is what it takes to keep the various strains of Puritans, neo-prohibitionists, safety freaks, militant vegetarians, anti-gunners, etc. that we breed in this country -- basically whatever crackheads happen to be inhabiting Congress now, or at any point in the future -- from getting a firmer grip on private life, than that's a price I'm happy to pay. And considering the greater sacrifices that have been made over the years for the poor excuse for a 'free society' that we have left, I'm not really interested in a lot of whining otherwise.