'RomneyCare' for US? Yeah, right, WSJ says

Hey Wall Street, this wouldn't be a problem at all if there were jobs for everybody that could cover the cost of insurance. But there aren't, and you guys are to blame for that.

And infertility is a disease just like any other. Health insurance should cover treatments for all ailments, not just the ones you can see.

Hey Tom Bishop, the decision to have children is a choice not a disease.

If anyone thinks Romney "owned" this health care policy, then they don't know Massachusetts and our politics. Republican governors sometimes get elected here so the legislature has a scapegoat. Maybe instead of free care, we should have people work for what they owe, unless circumstances dictate otherwise....while we're at it, we should have a private business monitor everything because when the good ol' boys are in charge, do we wonder why things end up costing so much? Um...corruption anyone?

If there were a single payer plan that could cut out the middle men, we could all get coverage. That is the plan that no politician yet has had the courage to put forward.

Infertility is awful for those it affects, but it doesn't threaten their health. It's wonderful that science exists to help people fulfill the DREAM of having a family, but does that mean it should be treated as equally important as cancer treatments, etc.?

Also, as a Massachusetts resident (and, I should mention, loyal Democrat), I'm annoyed at the "mandatory" coverage aspect. From the beginning, this seemed to benefit the insurance companies more than the citizens.

what we should have is a single payer plan, to cut out the middle man and give everyone coverage, but no politician yet has the courage to put it forward.

Mr. Bishop knows that infertiltiy, while a disease, won't kill you. And if he continues this argument, you'll probably hear him say that adoption should eventually be covered by health insurance companies as well. At some point you've got to draw the line at what should and shouldn't be covered. The State and others have to ultimately exclude these "luxurious" costs, and focus on those diseases and health-related issues that will really benefit the common resident. Jobs for everyone won't cover the insurance either. The overhaul needs to start back at how health care cost reimbursement is determined in the first place (currently, an obsolete reimbursement Medicare scheme which favors proceduralists over primary care physicians, mind you, the only "specialists" proven to improve mortality rates in a community) as well as evaluating true cost/benefit (to society) ratios for coverage of health related care.

Single payer. So you believe having the government running a program will cut costs due to lower overhead. Have you heard of the Big Dig, MWRA, Turnpike, Convention Center, Mass Port or the Registry.
The best way to increase costs and decrease service and quality levels is to put the government in charge

Procedures such as fertility treatment should not be covered. Mandatory health insurance was designed by insurers to benefit insurers. Given that it was sponsored by Romney, that is not really a surprise.

The Wall Street Journal article is 100% correct. Government involvement has never solved or helped anything, only made it worse.

Trying to figure out how anyone who desires health care insurance has it is an enromous issue. As an employee in Masachusetts who works in the field, I find it refreshing that this is at least there as an experiment.

I certainly do not condone the Federal government trying the same thing, but MA should be proud that it has tried to solve the issue. If this experiment does not succeed, then new ideas can be tried.

But the hands off "all is well" mode will not work to resolve this issue. Health care costs continue to eat up an ever-larger portion of our GDP. Steps have to be tried to control that. For that reason, Massachusetts as having tried something new should be very proud.

Fertility. That's rich. How many of those old, gray-haired white men at the WSJ editorial board have their Viagra paid for by their health care plans?

If obesity is a disease, then infertility certainly is one. Obesity is easily preventable and costs the healthcare system way more than infertility treatments. Additionally, having children promotes growth in the economy, especially when Massachusetts has declining population growth anyway, I think.

I would guess that all of the people who do not want insurances to cover fertility costs, either are capable of having children or already have their children and have no plans to have more. It's unfortunate, but it seems that people see things through their own benefit. Most people are capable of having children so they would not support medical insurance premiums which cover fertility. However, you cannot tell parents who have a possibility to have their own children: "go and adopt children instead of having yours"! Some people have said here that while infertility is a disease it doesn't kill. Their argument should end right where they acknowledge that infertility is a disease. There are many diseases, conditions, and disorders which don' kill, yet the treatment for those is covered, rightfully so. it makes sense and it's much more beneficial to all of us if instead of arguing against fellow citizens who support or need the insurances to cover fertility cost, we demand a better healthcare and an overhaul of the entire healthcare system.

Massachusetts has been a one party state for more than 30 years. One party in power results in voters LOSING their ability to control government. For a supposed educated state the voters are really stupid. That is why we end up with programs like Commonwealth Care.

It was clearly Romney's plan all along to waltz in to Massachusetts and push this thing through. Then he could run for president saying he gave us universal health care! (Of course, it did not work, but he want to be VP, so here we go again.)

The reality is quite different from the claims. I know numerous residents who still have no insurance. It's cheaper to pay the fine (those uninsured are now criminals) than it is to subscribe to even the state's plan. These are working people who have respectable jobs. They are not slackers, or indigent.

Covering fertilty treatments for those who can't afford insurance in the first place doesn't sound too smart, how can they afford children if they can't afford insurance? I guess that is just another cost the tax payer will have to pick up. Let's face it, any single payer system, your going to have to start to "ration" health care in some way, to say you can pay for a heathcare system that is going to give everyone the same benefits is going to bankrupt us all very fast. Also, just look to Canada, why do they come to the U.S. for their health procedures, because they don't want to wait in line up there, so they come here instead. This is a very complex issue, but thinking the government can do it better than private insurance is a joke

Maybe some of you people don't get it. Massachusetts' coverage of fertility treatment includes unlimited attempts at in-vitro fertilization, including the use of donor eggs and donor sperm. It will cover "infertility" in a 50 year old woman. There has to be some sort of realistic limit - time or odds of sucess related. Some infertility is easily cured, but a couple who gives birth by artificial means is still infertile - sometimes it can't be fixed.

Childbirth isn't a disease, it's a choice.

Why should health insurance cover that?

Hey Kevin... Get a clue!

The U.S. is the only industrialized nation on earth that doesn't have some form of universal health care. It's no coincidence that we pay more for our health care than any other country on earth, while, unless the studies your reading are non-peer-reviewed, WE HAVE THE WORST OUTCOMES!

And here's the part that you might be able to understand with an IQ over 50... Poor people who can go to a doctor and get a check up for a reasonable copay will do it, and not wait until their condition gets so bad it breaks the bank to fix it. The uninsured wait till they're practically dying, then the hospitals end up getting stiffed, which just ends up making us all pay in the end via higher premiums.

BTW: Privatization is the parrot call of the greedy and stupid. There's never been a single instance of it actually making anything better for anyone but company CEOs in US History.

There was nothing more predictable in the history of the world than the ballooning and out-of-control cost spiral associated with Commonwealth Care. Any assertions that the mushrooming costs came "out-of-the-blue" in just the first year of the plan are truly laughable. Commonwealth Care is destined to quickly suck more money out of taxpayers and businesses than the Big Dig ever did, and will make that corrupt public works boondoggle seem like the good old days!

Nancy S., you hit the nail right on the head. Mitt Romney did nothing positive for this state and really had no intentions of doing so. Another Republican governor using the MA state house as a stepping stone. He pushed through a plan that he knew (or at least he should have been smart enough to know) would not work. All it accomplished was making health care so expensive for MA employers that were providing their employees with health care, to cut back on their contribution or look out of state for a cheaper plan. I am now insured by a plan based out of Philadelphia which is subpar to what I had prior to Romney's "miracle health care plan." I pay 50% for it, and I get less benefits than the people on Commonwealth Care. If Mitt didn't see this coming, did he really think he was prepared to run this country or even be VP. Seriously........

Romney had something to do with Mass Healthcare?. And there are people in Massachusetts that actually believe that. Romney signed the Healthcare plan that the legislature put forward. Did he really have a choice? He would just get overridden anyway so why not look bad?

Single payer, yes that will get costs down. Just like the utilities are so affordable here in Massachusetts.

Keepp voting one Party and things will get better.

Hey Singlepay, you need to do your homework. People come to this country to get medical care FROM the countries with universal health care. Don't get sick in Canada in September, they are out of money.
People in the UK have "free" health insurance, but the upper middle class and rich have their own private hospitals.
Since you apparently think you are smarter than everyone else, please mention one thing the Government does MORE efficiently than the private sector. There are logrithmically more 'middlepeople"(PC) in a government run program than in the private sector. I have provided you examples, if you feel different, please provide your own.
Before you vote for a one payer system, do you want the people who managed the BIG Dig to be responsible for the cost and quality or our health care?
Do you want to wait in a registry line for your health care?
Ask some retired person on Medicare how the 'singlepayer" government health care program improved the quality, reduced the paperwork, eliminated the middlepeople and made health care better, cheaper and less complicated.
I recommend you be ready to duck.

If the WSJ doesn't like it then it's probably working.

To the above posters who think that business will solve everything...

Credit crisis followed by government and taxpayer bailout? Remember?

And Nancy S., a criminal is someone who has been conviced of a felony. Not having health insurance is a civil violation, like a parking ticket. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure it's a big difference.

What is especially galling is that as of Jan. 1, 2009, all citizens have to pay for pharmaceutical coverage, even if like me, we rarely use any prescription drugs. It will cost me $720 a year for a service I hardly ever use. Just past week, I had bronchitis and paid $65 for two prescriptions at WalMart. That is the first time in three years I needed a prescription. Why should I pay $60 a month year round for this coverage? I am furious -- it is comparable to extortion by big pharma to part healthy Mass. citizens from their money to support those who are not healthy, plenty of whom could practice better eating and exercise habits instead of resorting to drugs to control their blood pressure and cholesterol. WalMart has a long list of generic drugs now available for $4 for a 30-day supply. Pharma coverage is a rip-off.

Hey michaelc, There was a politician that had the courage to put forward the idea of a single-payer plan. It was Jerry Brown back in the early '90's when he was running for the Democratic party's nomination for president. That was a HUGE issue in his campaign.
As a side-issue, he ran a campaign that forced Tsongas out of the race and then was breathing down the neck of the remaining contender Bill Clinton after he beat Clinton in Connecticut....then he made his remarks in New York and all was lost....

I love the suggestions of private oversight of the government... come one folks, get a clue! Do you thinkt he big cost overruns with the big dig were due to governmental employees?
Wrong!
It was private corporations bilking the government. Just as Enron bilked investors and employees. Just like Corporations have been screwing over th elittle guy all the way back to Mack, Firestone and US Steel buying up and shutting down mass transit systems in dozens of cities across the country. Just like Chevy and Ford have been producing crappy vehicles and trying to sell the public on jingoism andpatriotism rather than actual quality.
Commonwealth Care is ballooning because it relies on private insurance providers. Let's consider the costs that exist under private insurance that don't under a single payer system.
Marketting, advertising, salespeople... oh and millions to billions of dollars of profit every single year in order to satiate ravenous investors. None of those costs exist under single payer, there is no corporate profit, no massive advertising budget in order to beat out the competition.

Healthcare is always going to be complicated ina multi-payer system. I have great health insurance, yet when I went to the emergency room 3 years ago, with my health insurance information, for a broken foot, I had to give them my information no less than 4 times and I STILL got a bill. In Europe, you just go tot he hospital and get it fixed. Sure, if you want the ebst care, you pay more at a private hospital or with a specialist, but NO ONE is denied the basics. No one. Not even stupid American tourists.

To touch on the other argument briefly, if you can't afford the fertility treatment, then you probably can't afford to raise a kid. Taxpayers should not be paying for fertility treatments, the insistence on having you 'own' child is pure, simple, ego. Especially when there are so many good kids in need of adoption.

Mitt gave a bold faced lie when he said healthcare costs $165 a month in Mass. in a debate. As a self emplyed business owner, I pay 330 a month for the cheapest plan, and they told me to expect 30-40% increase next yr when prescription coverage become mandatory. He is a bold faced liar, and this plan sucks if you dont have 400 million in the bank like phoney Mitt.

Thats your criteria for judging if a problem is working or not Bob? That if the WSJ doesnt like it, it must be alright?

Take your political blinders off for a second and wake up to the fact that this healthplan is a huge budgetary blackhole that is waiting to consume the state. Will you be alright with it when we start losing services, our taxes get hiked, towns funding is cut to pay for the ever increasing costs of the program?

You probably thought the state setting car insurance rates was a good idea too right? Oh wait, when the state opened them up to competition the rates dropped! Surprise surprise!

Oh and the credit crisis was caused by business and the government should've let business sort it out itself. Yes there should be some pain, some business's should've failed, thats life. The last thing we need is a nanny-state government stepping in to prop up business' that made bad decisions, same with homeowners who bought houses they knew they could never afford. But of course Bob that was all the fault of the evil mortgage companies right? Moral Hazard anyone.

I guess if fertility treatments should not be covered, then obstetric care shouldn't be either. Having children is a choice right? Why should someone else be paying for it?
While we're at it, maybe we shouldn't pay for any reproductive care, male or female. After all, as anyone who has ever taken a high school level biology class can tell you, you don't really need your reproductive system to survive.
The natural state for a woman is to be able to have children. If there is something wrong with her reproductive system, it probably means she has a disease or disorder affecting her. Should she not be covered by her health insurance?

Contrary to what was written above, insurance companies can in fact limit the number of times (to no more than 3) and conditions for which they will pay for a couple's IVF attempts. Infertility is very often medically treatable; sometimes the treatments are not successful, but in either case it is clearly a physiological limitation that causes the problem when insurance covers it. Even if someone's physiological limitation isn't life threatening, it still should be covered by health insurance if successful treatments can lead to a much higher quality of life. If someone's sight, or hearing, or ability to walk were limited, there wouldn't be indignation that treatments, even if they take several attempts, were covered by insurance even though one can live with such limitations. Also, insurance covers palliative treatments even though these aren't necessary to live yet I don't hear people arguing against this.

What we have in this state is a law to buy insurance not health reform.I watched Governor Romney sign chapter 58 and he stated"The next Governor can change some of this law,or all of it".
I have been waiting and nothing is being done by Governor Patrick.The state has made being uninsured a crime.Being uninsured is a social issue and having insurance companies gouging the citizens is a crime and one they get away with.The people that have insurance do not care about the ones who don't but if they lose their job that could change in an instant.
The Commonwealth Connector Authority has decided what is "affordable"and to me that is a crime.If a person is making under a certain amount the insurance is free or almost free but make any extra money and the premium will definetly increase.To me this is Unconsttitutional.What happen to our Right to Privacy?
The insurance industry is suppose to be "nonprfit" and nobody stops their greed.To me that is a crime.All the insurance companies do is pay the medical bills.The way to be fair to all and have health insurance for all is for the state to be self insured.This means no insurance companies needed,Everyone pays a flat fee,hire accountants to pay the bills.This country is brainwashed by the insurance companies and that is a crime.