Stinkin Liberal State Offers Health Insurance To All...

The New York Times


April 12, 2006
Massachusetts Governor Signs Health Care Bill
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOSTON (AP) -- Gov. Mitt Romney signed legislation Wednesday that would make Massachusetts the first state to require everyone to have health insurance, just as drivers must have automobile coverage.

The law would make Massachusetts the only state with universal health coverage, employing a combination of subsidies and penalties to make insurance more affordable and to force people to buy it, too.

However, Romney vetoed a section imposing an annual $295-per-worker fee on businesses that do not provide their employees with coverage.

The law has thrust the state to the forefront of the national debate over how to extend coverage to the uninsured without creating a single government-controlled system. Massachusetts has an estimated 550,000 uninsured.

The program is a potential political coup for Romney as he weighs a possible run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

"The reason this is so landmark is that we have found a way, collectively, to get all of our citizens insurance without some new government-mandated takeover or a huge new tax program," he said.

The governor said the program would be financed largely with the millions of dollars that the state now spends on uncompensated medical care for poor people who show up at hospitals and clinics without health insurance.

By July 2007, everyone in Massachusetts will have to have health insurance.

Under the plan, the state will offer free or heavily subsidized coverage to poor and lower-income people. Those who can afford insurance but still refuse to get it will face escalating tax penalties. For example, they will lose the ability to claim a personal exemption on their state tax returns. That would cost an individual about $189 and a couple filing jointly about $378.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who attended the signing ceremony in Boston's historic Fanueil Hall, praised Romney for giving the state "just what the doctor ordered."

"With the signing of this landmark health reform bill, after so many years of false starts, our actions have finally matched our words and we have lived up to our ideals," Kennedy said.

The cost of the program was put at $316 million in the first year, rising to more than a $1 billion in the third year, with much of that money coming from federal reimbursements and existing state spending, officials said.

About $125 million in new money will come from the state's general fund each of the three years. The $295 per-employee assessment would have brought in a maximum of $45 million a year.

Romney used his line-item veto power to strike eight portions of the bill, most significantly the $295 fee. Administration officials said the fee could actually discourage registration for the new health program, since some employers might consider it cheaper to pay the fee than to insure workers.

"It's a very small feature of this bill. It's a very insignificant and unnecessary and, in some respects, counterproductive element of this bill," Romney said in an interview Tuesday. "It applies to a tiny number of employers, and it raises a very small amount of money relative to the scale of this entire proposal. So I don't think it's necessary."

Leaders of the heavily Democratic state Legislature said they would override any changes proposed by the governor.

"To change anything will disturb the delicate balance that made this law possible," House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi said. "Each and every element of this law is critical to accomplishing our intentions and goals."

Business and hospital leaders also criticized the veto of the fee. Massachusetts Hospital Association President Ron Hollander said it threatened the balance of the bill.

"I think it is important that all the parts and all the parties stay together," he said. "The employer assessment is critical."