Why doesn't every state follow Massachusetts' healthcare system?

Alright, losers. Let's try to have a real health care discussion, here.

I'm a Massachusetts resident. We passed universal health care under MITT ROMNEY of all people (holy shit, right?) In 2006. 'RomneyCare' is extremely popular here, and around 30% of Mass residents are on a free or next-to-free version of it. We have nearly 100% health care coverage here annually (I believe it was 98% this year), with plenty of medical resources and offices which accept the program. I was on 'RomneyCare' for around 4 years and never had trouble finding a doctor. Obviously, rich folk are subsidizing the poor through taxes, and Massachusetts is fitting the bill for the rest.

Republicans are having trouble passing nationwide legislation, and the ACA won't be sustainable much longer because of rising premiums. Why don't all 50 states come up with individual health care plans, and the feds fit the bill for the difference in costs if the state taxes dont cover it? Is this such a bad idea? It works wonderfully here. However, yes, I know- Massachusetts is a very wealthy state- so it works out.

I don't know how hip you guys are to Mass laws, but we have had Universal care for over a decade, and this just doesn't seem like an impossibility.

The answer is simple, really. This Republican proposed healthcare system was implemented by a Democratic administration so all the nuts in the party decried it as socialism and now the "center" of the debate is so far to the right that it allows for no workable solutions.

I only pay $17 a week anyways, I'm not complaining.

Well according to Reagan, socialism is bad so your logic is invalid.

How about we expect every adult to provide for the means to pay for their own health care? You know. Arrange your life and your finances in such a way that you have savings and insurance to pay your own damn bills.

Oh, wait, that's right. In the modern USA, you get to expect your basic needs to be provided for you by others.

Never mind. Disregard what I said. I'll just keep working harder and producing more so I can provide for others that I don't know, but apparently am responsible for.

No time for responses. Have to go to work now.

Of course you're not complaining.

The questions is: Are you ashamed at having your health insurance, and therefore your health care, paid for by others?

You should be.

To be honest, health care should be a right- and nobody should go without care. You can income-shame people if you want, but health care is unaffordable and the USA is fucked up. There shouldn't be health 'insurance' to begin with. If you need medical aid, you should get it.

Also big ups to everyone in this thread for not really answering the question. Do you support Massachusetts health care strategy or not? Should the other states follow?

@Shmiity: I thought it was implied, but yes. Really, I think we need to go single player in order to address the cost drivers.

Yeah that would be sweet but when you have individuals like this:

It shows that America is still a loooong ways off from single-payer lol. Maybe one day they'll catch up to other first world nations...

thanks!

We do provide the means. You pitch in a little, everyone get's a lot out of it when they need it. Don't be selfish, and don't be a crybaby...you're not "working harder" to make up for what they're taking lol. Bunch of drama queens in here...

I think sometimes people forget that we run the government, that it exists as a mechanism to look after us, and that healthcare should be part of that mechanism.

"Arranging your life and finances" in the current climate of healthcare, with all the costs of staying in hospitals, medicine, etc, is a financial impossibility for all but the wealthiest of Americans. I am a fairly healthy person, but A.) I have a preexisting condition, and B.) I have some medication expenses that would basically put me into poverty.

Yeah it sucks when you hear about people on welfare who are able to work being covered and that pisses me off a little, but why not think of a neighbor who was let go from his job and his three kids and wife who deserve and need that coverage while he looks for a new job? Or some other example.

pretty much this.

We're about to increase the military budget when all other countries are decreasing theirs, and trying build a pointless fence, but nooooooooooooo we can't have healthcare for everyone.

And the worst part is we have Americans fighting against their own self interest to such a degree they come off like a religious zealot.

Not to be overly nitpicky again.

But most countries dont use single payer healthcare. But rather other forms of universal healthcare. There are multiple good solutions to healthcare. Single Payer is only one of the successful models.

But yeah, it will be a while until the US adopts a universal coverage system. Sadly enough.

Why cant those people who make $30, 000 a year before taxes set aside $4000 dollars for health insurance. Or just get a high paying job, they are everywhere right? I just don't get it either (sarcasm).

There are plenty of adults that work more than 40 hours per week and can't afford health insurance, or the costs associated with it. It's the reason why health care expenditures bankrupt so many people in this country.

But hell, they're just lazy assholes, right? This attitude is essentially the GOP plan: Save money. Don't have money? F*ck you. Quit being poor while we do nothing to help reduce costs.

I'm a maker, HUURRRR DURRR, you're a take, HUUURRR DURRRR.

Yeah, my bad. I meant to say universal healthcare.

@drunk_pi: If I spend my hard earned money in taxes I would like it to go to something that actually benefits me. Healthcare, is one of those things that does benefit me, even if I do pay for others healthcare, that money still benefits me in ways since it wont make other people do some rather... shall we say reckless things to afford those medical bills. Even then, the system in place is so much more cost efficient. It is still a deal that serves to ultimately make it cheaper for everyone.

One of the nice things about uniersval health coverage is that there are so many ways to achieve the goal.

Reagan actually implemented many socialist programs, or at least ones that would be called socialist within our current political climate. I never get this foolish disregard for entire political systems for a few bad ideas within them. If a socialist healthcare system can maximize a money to care ratio the most effectively, use it. If not, do not use it. Socialism as a philosophy does not need to hinge upon one single way of accomplishing societal goals within it. But alas, far easier to just go "**** socialism!! You're a fascist communist, bourgeois pig!!"

That right there is the key. The political climate has shifted rightward, and not subtly.

There arent enough wealthy people in some states to pay for all the health care. Massachusetts has decent money so it works.

Man you really need to get a grip on reality. The world you wish to live in isn't even realistically possible, even if everyone was a perfect as you.

Im going to go ahead and clarify a few things here.

1. The ACA is this just on a national level. To suggest it would some how work for every state, yet not on a nationally is.... rather contradictory.

2. Mitt and Obama passed the ACA because they are both republicans and the ACA is a republican written bill. A response written in the 90s to democrats pushing for universal health care. The ACA was originally written by the Heritage Foundation, RR and Bush sr. and it was believed that if Bush won he would have implemented it. Had he done this, the republicans would be doing nothing but bragging about how fantastic it was. And no this was not universal health care that Romney passed, it was simply a very similar version of the ACA.

3. "the ACA won't be sustainable much longer because of rising premiums"

I always hear this as a response to the ACA, yet it seems to come from people who are too young to have paid for health insurance before, or those who simply don't know the facts.

The fact is premiums are rising slower than they ever have and if youve had insurance before the ACA was passed, youd know how often it increased and how often your plans, doctors, etc. changed on a regular basis. I can remember years where my plans or doctors or premiums changed half a dozen times and this was WELL before the ACA. Since then my plan has chanced twice.

4. At this point its not a state issue, its something that needs to be covered as a right. The only financial problems people bring up are all related to us simply giving too much of our tax dollars to corporate pockets instead of back to ourselves for these things. So its really not even an argument against it.

Well that is simple, the blue states don't actually like the idea of communism/socialism. The way our economy works, the nation's wealth flows from the center of the country and pools on the coasts, most the North East and and the West Coast. Both would be wastelands without the support from flyover country. Because the wealth of the nation pools in those coastal metropolises, in order to actually fund a quality standard of living where folks who make $8.50 an hour so they could afford a good home, quality health care, decent food and quality education we would have to tax those metropolises to an even playing field.

If however you actually increase the taxes of Massachusetts to level the playing field in Alabama, the residence of Massachusetts will riot as suddenly 35% of their income/budget would evaporate. So instead they just look down their nose at "the ignorant" who make 65% of what they do, because they fail to invest the money they do not have.

There is really no reason to suggest it could not work in any state. But its kind of silly to make this a state issue when its clearly a national one.

Isn't it the opposite? That wealth flows from the coasts to middle America.

@perfect_blue: you are talking taxes. I think he's talking about natural resources.

Medicaid is generally state paid and Massachusett's health system is not a national plan, its a state plan. So those are incorrect points.

No, medicaid is a national program. Its simply the states create a few of the details.

This is why rejecting expanded medicaid made no sense. Because we are paying for medicaid with our tax dollars already, the expansion simply made it so that the state would need to take on 10% of the burden of cost 6 years after implementation? 5 years? One of the two.

And btw, the states that choose to not participate in medicaid expansion and/or also give almost no help to low income people for medicine (Tx, fl, etc) are also the worst in the nation on these subjects.... so we cant say that we've seen it succeed with a state option. Florida if they took expanded medicaid would cover 20% of its population. Not doing this, is a failure.

This is the same conversation that was had during the 2012 election. Romney simply claimed that it worked at a state level but wouldn't work at a national level because......well because......well that's where the *insert cogent reason here* would have come into play. We never really rec'd an answer.

Seems rather simple as it's already been pointed out that the mandate and the ACA are essentially retooled Republican plans from the early 90's. They were simply tainted by being implemented under Obama since he was a democrat.

Of course we never get an answer, this is because a third grader who just started to learn division can demonstrate why this claim is bullshit. Whenever someone knows their claim is bullshit, they do all they can to avoid stating something provable.

I am not sure how one could arrive at this conclusion. California is the textbook example of a National Economy. Without, as example, the pipelines that supply it with Natural Gas, the state would turn into a post apocalyptic nightmare in a week. About the only way to justify the existence of coastal states is trickle down economics. The idea that states like North Dakota and Colorado have a better life because they supply the six largest economy in the world with what it needs to exist.

From a socialist or communist perspective however, California is a crime against blue collar workers. It sucks up the natural resources of the entire western half of the United States, but still complains that it doesn't get it's fair share of federal funding.

No, medicaid is run mostly by the states with some federal funding. Each state varies dramatically on how medicaid is run, what it pays, and who is covered.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to all the points. Let me simplify my argument down: I'm saying: Each state should create their own healthcare system funded by taxes, because for some reason- people love supporting their home state but not the fed. They will see direct return on their taxes. However, not every state is wealthy like Mass, so the government should pick up the remaining tab left by poorer states. Make sense? Im an ACA fan for sure, but I just feel like a state solution would get voters to say yes.

"obviously the rich are subsidizing the poor with the state paying for the rest" there is your answer.

Do you want to know why so many countries have free health Care? Because America is subsidizing their military, there is a reason so many of those countries are finding it unsubstainable even with America basically providing them military.

Socialism will always fail, helping a fellow human only works in small ways, not when it's enforced by the state.

aaaannndddd its still a federal program. A state having choices and participating in cost, does not change this fact.

Most Americans want universal/single payer, the ones who dont need to get the **** over it.

So we just kind of saw the flaw with what youre suggesting. Expanded medicaid. Its paid for by all federal tax payers, everyone paying taxes in any way should be allowed to participate, but its a state option and what happened? Over half the states did not take that option for bullshit partisan reasons. We're not fighting against political ideologies here, we are fighting against complete corruption and personal egotism.

You're talking to a guy who believes we shouldn't have health insurance at all. We should have health CARE. If you need it, you can get it. Period. Health care is a right

Not really. "It is a means tested program that is jointly funded by the state and federal governments and managed by the states." More state run and managed than federal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid

Stop trying to nit pick. Its mandatory by our federal government that states participate. That is what a federal program is.

I think California wants to implement its own universal healthcare.

run by the state, and funding determined by state.

Required by federal government, partially funded by state, states allowed to determine thresholds.

Its not the only federal program that allows for state options. In fact most of them do.

How is having subsidized healthcare socialism? Can we just drop the buzz words and actually work towards a practical and pragmatic approach to healthcare? This is even ignoring that the fact that US health care is by far the most inefficient form in the western world when it comes to cost and delivery.

It's always easy to spot the simpletons with their constant rhetoric of shouting, 'Socialism!'.