StateHouseCall.org reports that the much-vaunted Massachusetts Health Plan "now costs 3.2 times more than originally advertised".
Quoting the January 24, 2008 Boston Globe ("Cost of health initiative up $400m"), the plan's advocates had hoped that "there would be a significant drop in spending on healthcare for the uninsured". However, the state now acknowledges that this "is not going to happen".
The Massachusetts plan includes onerous mandates on individuals and businesses, and a complicated government-run "connector" which only allows customer to purchase policies that the state deems appropriate (undercutting the rational judgment and preferences of individuals). These violations of individual patients' rights to freely contract for what is in their best medical and financial interest leads to the economic distortions and high costs we now see.
Colorado should not adopt any variation of the Massachusetts plan.
The blog of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM)
