Patient Power

Will Massachusetts authorities ration medical care?

From the New York Times:

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. …

…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. …

Because Massachusetts now requires its residents to be insured, it cannot fall back on the strategy used by other states in hard times — to simply remove people from the public insurance rolls by restricting eligibility.

“It forces us to look in the mirror and say, ‘What do we do about health care spending?’ ” said Jon M. Kingsdale, executive director of the agency that administers Commonwealth Care. “And the reason that’s so challenging is that it means limiting resources for people doing really good stuff.

Read it again: “limiting resources for people doing really good stuff.”  Sounds like this means government officials will determine whether patients will receive medical care.  Will some people be “too old for hip surgery,” as in Canada?

Also note that the article states: “nearly 60 percent of the newly insured are covered by public programs.” So how effective is the mandate that everyone get insurance?

(via Scott Keays)

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