Now All Taxpayers Are Paying For Our Socialized Health Insurance
by Matt Margolis, July 27th, 2006 at 07:33am
I’ve been a strong opponent of the Universal (Socialized) Health Insurance Plan that Mitt Romney signed into law. For all the money that it is going cost us (which I predict will be far higher than projected costs) it does absolutely nothing to actually lower the cost of health insurance or health care. Nothing.
Now, all American taxpayers are going to help pay for it.
The new Massachusetts health plan, the first in the U.S. requiring all residents to have medical insurance, won the approval of the federal government, helping to ensure medical coverage for the state’s poorest citizens.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt today signed a waiver that will allow Massachusetts to receive $385 million in federal funding to help pay for the care of the poor and enable low-income workers to purchase insurance.
I’m sure that after the tragedy in tunnel that American taxpayers are anxious to help pay for another Massachusetts mistake.
Entry Filed under: Health Care
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10 Comments
1. Helen | July 27th, 2006 at 9:07 am
In 1965 (or thereabouts) the Massachusetts town I grew up in had three doctors each with offices in town, as did most other towns around nearby. All us kids received a card from the school system on which we indicated our doctor of choice. I don’t recall a time when we could not be seen almost immediately by the good Doctor who was well familiar with my whole family’s health, and everyone else’s under his care in town. House calls were not unheard of.
So when we ask……”What has happened? Why aren’t they still downtown anymore? Why do I have to make appointments months in advance? Why do I have to travel fifty to one hundred miles for medical treatment?”…and on and on and on…why are there no answers?
I want a Doctor on Main Street again. How can we do this? How do we address the sad reality that lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit against Dr. Mainstreet made medical malpractice insurance cost prohibitive? Should we lower our suing threshold if it means Jimmy could have the bump on his head seen before the baseball game is over? Would it be possible for a town to provide the Doctor’s housing free of charge as long as he or she is employed within the town? Would it be possible for a doctor to bypass some of the insurance/legal stuff if we simply gave him a check at the office? Please help me with this…I’m not any kind of a professional…just a caring mother.
2. Salvatore Coglione | July 27th, 2006 at 10:33 am
“Earth to Planet Matt! Earth to Planet Matt!”
Massachusetts is one of the states that pays more in federal taxes than are spent in-state –for every dollar we pay in federal taxes, only .77 cents is spent in the Bay State. So no other “American taxpayers” help pay for the Big Dig, we pay our own way.
The Welfare States that get more federal taxes spent in their state than they pay are overwhelmingly Republican so-called “Red State” strongholds –Alaska, Idaho, S. Carolina, Utah, Nebraska, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Dakotas.
MA –along with NY, NJ, CA, CT, IL, NH, MN, CO, NV is among the 10 highest donor states who subsidize other states in the era of Big Government Republicanism.
So please get your facts straight and stop your whining.
3. Andy | July 27th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Mr. Coglione,
That doesn’t mean we “pay our own way,” and I am sure you know that.
4. Phil Epstein | July 27th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
“…it does absolutely nothing to actually lower the cost of health insurance or health care.”
People without health insurance utilize Emergency Room services at a higher rate than those with insurance. Emergency Room care is much more expensive and when people can’t pay for it, TAXPAYERS pay for it. By providing health insurance that lets people get preventive care, it reduces ER visits and lowers overall health costs in MA.
That’s just one of the ways universal insurance lowers health care costs for ALL of us.
5. obi juan | July 27th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Sal, you are forgetting that the federal income tax is progressive. Of course states that have a higher income are taxed more than they spend. Who is it that wants a very progressive income tax? The guys we elect every year in this state.
6. Kevin in the Burbs | July 28th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I’m no fan of taxpayer money wasted on *anything* as ridiculous as the Big Dig, but I have to differ with you on this Obi Wan (and Andy). Sure, we contribute more in federal taxes because the tax code is progressive and there is more wealth and income here than places like Mississippi. No problem with that. But that doesn’t change the fact that 25 cents on a dollar of what our state pays gets spent out of state (even when you factor in the debt and discetionary vs. entitlement spending).
Massachusetts taxpayers have more than covered the admittedly outrageous cost of the big Dig not to mention more wasteful nonsense in Alabama, farm states, etc. We help pay for their wasteful government projects, but they don’t help pay for ours.
7. Salvatore Coglione | July 28th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Yes, it’s progressive which is great! People like Paris Hilton, Riley P. Bechtel and A-Rod should pay more taxes than a typical nurse, firefighter or US Marine –it’s the American Way.
Matt is simply lying in his typical high-pitched whine when he claims that taxpayers in other states pay for the Big Dig. We more than cover the cost of the Big Dig and every other federal expenditure in the state. Repubicans in Welfare States are the ones taking tax money from taxpayers in other states –including from Massachusetts— to spend on pork projects and corporate welfare in their states.
8. Helen | July 29th, 2006 at 5:47 am
“Yes, it’s progressive which is great! People like Paris Hilton, Riley P. Bechtel and A-Rod should pay more taxes than a typical nurse, firefighter or US Marine –it’s the American Way.”
I cannot let this go unchallenged…God Bless and Keep our Troops, their families and all who know the cost of war.
9. Steven Jens | July 29th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Is this in place of Medicaid? Or is that still going to exist, with federal funding?
If all states ought to pay into the federal government the same amount as they get back, why bother with the federal middle-man? Let Massachusetts pay for the big dig directly, and let Iowa pay for its own corn subsidies.
10. Salvatore Coglione | July 31st, 2006 at 10:37 pm
There’s nothing wrong in principle with states getting more than they pay in federal taxes. Indeed, successes like the interstate highway system, rural electrification, the GI Bill, the internet, disaster relief (excepting Katrina) would otherwise have been impossible.
The only problem is hypocritical right-wing Republicans who whine ad nauseum about paying taxes, government waste, and how morally superior they are to so-called Blue Sate Americans –while they take our tax money to stuff their bloated pie-holes with wasteful pork and patronage in their own back yards.