Massachusetts learns universal health care is expensive

Massachusetts learns universal health care is very expensive. They set up a program for near universal health care three years ago. Now, Massachusetts health care costs are skyrocketing and the bill is coming due. Their plan to control costs is to stop paying for the quality of care and start paying for prevention. That will be comforting to Massachusetts residents fighting cancer or other serious diseases now.

Massachusetts Faces Costs of Big Health Care Plan
By Kevin Sack

BOSTON — Three years ago, Massachusetts enacted perhaps the boldest state health care experiment in American history, bringing near-universal coverage to the commonwealth with Paul Revere speed.

To make it happen, Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, made an expedient choice, deferring until another day any serious effort to control the state’s runaway health costs.

The day of reckoning has arrived. Threatened first by rapid early enrollment in its new subsidized insurance program and now by a withering economy, the state’s pioneering overhaul has entered a second, more challenging phase.

Thanks to new taxes and fees imposed last year, the health plan’s jittery finances have stabilized for the moment. But government and industry officials agree that the plan will not be sustainable over the next 5 to 10 years if they do not take significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending. (Excerpt)read more at boston.com