Comments on: Massachusetts Health Reform: Solution or Stopgap?

By: miss

miss — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:23:24 +0000

At first I thought this was the greatest thing, until I found out that I had a deductible. Well, I am unemployed and get a little less than 300 a week. I can barely afford to live now I owe a hospital almost 1000 bucks! I can’t afford to pay them. Thankfully they don’t put overdue balances on your credit report or I’d be screwed.
So I do the right thing, get health insurance and get screwed. If I didn’t have health insurance I’d be screwed too. What is with these high deductibles? It’s a scam.
Yes, the Mass Unemployment pays 80 percent of my premium and thats good but its not good when I have a 2500 deductible. What!!

I wish I was an immigrant seriously. NOthing at all against immigrants, but I visted a website run by the state and they quailify for free care, MORE care than what a US citizen gets. What is up with that

By: Cindy

Cindy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:18:28 +0000

No one seems to be listening since I only seem to hear about how great the new MA plan is. I wouldn’t know because I can’t afford it. I lost my job over a year ago and couldn’t afford COBRA so I tried to get on the MA plan.

1. I couldn’t afford it. They based their estimates on what I made in the prior year, not what I could afford going forward. Even when I entered what I would be getting from unemployment, they thought I could pay more than I know I can afford (since I’m getting less than half of what I was making before and it barely covers the basics of food and shelter).

2. Knowing that it is now illegal for me NOT to have insurance, and I’m usually a stickler for following the rules (I don’t even speed or cheat on my taxes). I clicked through to see what I would be getting if I did sign up and there was not a single plan available to me even if I could afford the premiums.

3. My extended family, many who are either self-employed and/or work part-time (one works at a hospital and can’t get health ins!) have had many problems with this program. They haven’t been able to get doctors (none of us live in Boston, so the doctors assigned have been up to 1.5 hours away or on opposite ends of the state for different immediate family members). The premiums went from under $200 per person per month to close to $500 per person for month in just over a year (with no claims other than annual physicals!)

4. Our local community health center, the people who have been treating the people in our community without means, the ones who have been advocating for healthcare for the uninsured think it’s a terrible system. As one woman I spoke to there said “we wanted changes to the system, but this isn’t what we meant. It isn’t helping anyone and has actually made things worse.”

I’m not sure why the new administrations (in MA and in the US) promote it so much since it’s not working and obviously designed to benefit the insurance companies while pretending to help the people. It was passed while Mitt Romney, a very wealthy Republican, was governor. It’s a bad system that isn’t working and never will.

A single-payer system, even if bureaucratic, will remove much of the inefficient bureaucracy of the current system at its core. With the process simplified, doctors and hospitals can streamline their administrative processes, which add very little value to the actual provision of health care.

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:32:04 +0000

I thought we lived in a free country not one that makes you buy something you do not want or cannot afford. I am a small business owner and with the slow economy I have been trying to reduce expenses any way I can. The MA tells me all the money I saved has to be spent on a healthcare plan I do not need or want, and if I do not the will fine me. This is not the solution to the problem. Same old government, I work hard so they can take my money.

By: Linda

Linda — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:40:41 +0000

And Friends please don’t speak of deductibles! If you have a copay or deductible you really don’t have Health Insurance. 20% 30%? You cannot afford to pay these things!

By: Linda

Linda — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:23:52 +0000

Lets crunch some more numbers. This time its California. Female, 58, caregiver for life of parents now gone. No SS or Medicare. Now living on 2300 a month and paying 800 a month on a HMO. And it goes up a 100 dollars a year. And after searching for some more affordable plan, surprise, its either this or nothing. The 2300 a month is forever and so are the taxes. I cannot afford HMO but will keep it till the Heath reform gets passed. If it does not get passed I will have to give up.

By: Frank

Frank — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:41:47 +0000

Health insurance companies TAKE A THIRD OF EVERY HEALTHCARE DOLLAR. If America switched to a single payer system, we could afford to give EVERYBODY high quality care.

What would we lose?

Stress – Stress causes literally hundreds of diseases..

Go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez and search on stress and the remaining search terms in combination. Follow “related links” to other papers. Get more search terms from them to extend your search.

You can mail the results to yourself.

stress, allostasis, allostatic load, corticosteroid,
Glucocorticoid, neuroinflammation, psychosocial stress, hippocampal function,

By: Paul Crowley

Paul Crowley — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:39:41 +0000

This plan is killing me. I think it’s a scam to get the insurance companies rich and make the politicians look like heroes. I am self employed. I left work and a good job to care for my mother in a nursing home.She is now gone and I make barely enough to cover bills. It takes me until July to cover my health insance bills.I am 59 and take NO medications whatsoever, but since january I have to pay for prescription drug coverage that I don’t need and can’t afford. It is an extra $672 a year that I don’t have. The next enrollment period in june when they do thier annual price increase (what else)I am going to pick a cheaper, higher deductable plan that helps offset the drug plan that was shoved down my throat. And the insurance people are laughing all the way to the bank. Ah, the Massachusetts miracle!And I end up with a plan that I don’t really want.

By: JAck

JAck — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 02:09:37 +0000

Hard to beleive how many people don’t see that health care should be treated as a right not a product for sale or profit. Somebody always has to take care of the poor and the less fortunate even the losers. Whats happened here in Anerica that we’ve become so callous and selfish. Even sadder is that I truly beleive it is probably costing us more the way things are than if we had a National health system that took care of everybody. It just makes sense with all the people in the middle making money off the care as opposed to all that money going to the care. Not much Common Sense left out there today!!!!!

By: Eliza Jane Dodd

Eliza Jane Dodd — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:03:18 +0000

Shannon I had BCBS of Tenn.I was very active and healthy and I paid $7,500 a yr @ 17 and ya think they would of helped me 123 ? No I had to fight with the OBGYN to get the cancer removed .First it was Vioxx and then Narcotics and then Liquid narcotics ..finally I FOUGHT to get a operation .I have serveral after I lost my health care Horror stories ..You become INVISABLE !

By: Eliza Jane Dodd

Eliza Jane Dodd — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:59:52 +0000

Hey Patricia .I am 46 Female from Tennessee and I have been to the Human Services Several Times since 2003 .Both times they told me to have a baby and I could get TennCare ,I have moved far away from Tennessee after living there 30 years .I moved to Texas thought it would be better .I now have colon cancer and they Human Services told me the same thing , to have a baby .Now I talk to everyone about HR676 and take my spare money $10. and buy copies to make about HR676 and every person I give it to wants HR676 , most all my age with No Health Care .Average wait time in the County @Dallas JPS county is 19 hours long , 2 months ago a man 45 died from waiting 19 hrs he was haveing a heart attack .With Out HR676 I am a Dead Woman .The Reason TennCare went bankrupt in 2003 was WALMART and illegal’s ,Watch ,What Now Mr. President on youtube I now take natural cures to stay alive Purple Corn from Peru from Global Fusion and I take curcumin .I once had BCBS of Tn Cobra @17 yrs @ $7,500 a Year and I only used it ONE time in 17 Years .I had Vulva Cancer and the OBGYN gave me VIOXX .He got a vaction and a bonus from Merrikk and I had to fight for 3 months to get the cancer removed ! Then I was dropped and now I just cant afford health care @$1,200 a month President Obama said would cost me .I might as well not been born .I am invisable .I cant afford anything but Death and I cant afford that .Who’s is going to bury me ?