The original document at http://freeassemblage.blogspot.

com/2009/01/universal-
health-care-in-us-gets-no.html contains live links to references.

----------Universal Health Care in U.S. Gets "No Pass"-----------

>Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and a Democrat-majority legislature passed

“universal” health insurance, gaining budget-busting cost overruns and a state
begging breathlessly for $21 billion more federal transfer payments to fund it for
three more years.<

This is a reprint from Pacific Research Center Vol. 14 No. 3: January 21, 2009
Lessons from States with “Universal” Health Care
By John R. Graham, Director, Health Care Studies

Last January, governor Schwarzenegger’s expensive and unwieldy proposal for so-
called “universal” health care finally gasped its last breath, after a long year
of lobbying and coalition-building by the governor’s team. A year later, in 2009,
legislators should attempt to learn from two states that have legislated
“universal” care.

Hawaii imposed universal health care in 1974 by passing a law compelling employers
to provide health insurance and forcing them to pay half the cost of a plan
directly. Facing resistance from small businesses, the state has never been able
to “close the deal.” As late as 1993, a supportive scholar described Hawaii’s
efforts at “universal” coverage as “lodged somewhere in midstream.”

On the other hand, also in 1993, managers in the state’s health department managed
to convince themselves that Hawaii had covered 95 percent of its population. As it
turns out, in 1974, one in 50 Hawaii residents was uninsured. Today, after more
than three decades of mandatory insurance, that number stands at one in 10. Of
course, Hawaii is not immune to national trends, but scholars have concluded that
the state’s pay-or-play mandate might have reduced the ranks of the uninsured by 5
to 8 percent at best. The plan fails to deliver, but Hawaiian advocates of
government-dictated health care just won’t quit.

Last year they rolled out yet another program – “Keiki Care,” compulsory “free”
health insurance for children without coverage, who are in families with incomes
too high for Medicaid or other state programs. Republican governor Linda Lingle
shuttered it in October, barely seven months after its launch, after learning that
85 percent of the kids enrolled had previously been covered by a private, non-
profit plan for only $55 per month.

Republican governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts collaborated with a Democrat-

majority legislature to pass “universal” health insurance in April 2006. Although
he tried to backpedal during the presidential primaries, he cannot avoid the
plan’s legacy: budget-busting cost overruns and a state begging breathlessly for
$21 billion more federal transfer payments to fund it for three more years.

Notwithstanding a bailout from the federal government, the state has had to raise
taxes on businesses – a task the legislature delegated to the bureaucrats who run
the program. While hospitals' uncompensated care dropped from $166 million in the
first quarter of 2007 down to $98 million in the first quarter of 2008, or $272
million annually, the budget for “universal” health care in Massachusetts is
running at $869 million: $3.19 of taxpayers' dollars spent for every dollar of
uncompensated care avoided.

Californians can be grateful that governor Schwarzenegger failed to impose a

similar regime but those who proposed it are more active than ever. David Zingale,
who spearheaded the governor’s initiative, has joined the California Endowment, a
foundation with $3 billion in assets, to lobby for health reform in Sacramento.
These folks mean business.

The California Endowment spent $10 million in advertising for health “reform” in
2007. But the Endowment is not a charity that has succeeded in raising money
through voluntary philanthropic donations. Rather, it is sitting on a pot of gold
that the state taxed from Blue Cross of California’s surplus back in 1996, as a
cost of getting the state’s permission to convert to a for-profit health plan. And
to what end?

Such conversions were necessary because non-profit health plans were increasingly
poorly capitalized as health costs rose, and threatened with insolvency. For-
profit conversions simply allow beneficiaries to transfer some of the risk of
rising health costs to shareholders.

The California Endowment does conduct some valuable research. Nevertheless, by

imposing a special tax on Blue Cross to found this unaccountable organization,
California has actually reduced the amount of money available for private health
care, and increased the amount of money “invested” in advertising campaigns
supporting government-run health care.

That kind of government plan, the evidence from Hawaii and Massachusetts suggests,
tends to promise more than it can deliver and introduce more problems than it
solves. In 2009, California taxpayers should demand more freedom to purchase the
health care that best meets their needs. Making Health Savings Accounts tax
deductible would be a good place for legislators to start.

Forward to a Friend
View our other publications
See our online bookstore for recent releases

Donate to PRI today!

One Embarcadero Center, Ste. 350, San Francisco, CA 94111Ph: 415/989.0833 • Fax:
415/989.2411Email: info@pacificresearch.org • http://www.pacificresearch.org/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of
the LLC and are:
© 2008-2009 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®