One of several major concerns I have in the public discussion surrounding universal health care is that many of the popular proposals we hear being floated focus on insuring the uninsured, without addressing the bigger problem: the fact that the costs of medical care are growing much faster than the overall rate of inflation.
It seems that I might not be alone in this thinking.
The New York Times has run an article discussing the challenge of enforcing Massachusetts’ mandatory health insurance laws. Included in the article is this observation:
But the reluctance of so many to enroll, along with the possible exemption of 60,000 residents who cannot afford premiums, has raised questions about whether even a mandate can guarantee truly universal coverage.
Additional concerns have been generated by projections that the state’s insurers plan to raise rates 10 percent to 12 percent next year, twice this year’s national average. That would undercut the plan’s secondary goal of slowing the increase in health costs.
“We’re going to be very aggressive in trying to get those numbers down to single digits,” said Jon M. Kingsdale, executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, the agency that markets the subsidized insurance policies. “If we continue with double-digit inflation, I don’t think health reform is sustainable.”