DeStefano Calls For Universal Health Care Coverage

Does DeStefano's plan penalize those who don't buy insurance, like Mass' does? (0.00 / 0)

The Mass plan is punative towards individuals, and Gov. Romney is planning on striking the penalty on businesses away with a line-item veto.

Universal Healthcare should not punish people who may be on the borderline between lower middle class and the poor.  Universal Healthcare should cover everyone and the insurance companies can offer plans that allow individuals to upgrade health coverage, such as selecting a private or semi-private room.

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by: Larkspur @ Wed Apr 12, 2006 at 20:47:57 PM UTC

Nope. (0.00 / 0)

There is no legal requirement here to have health insurance like there is in the Mass plan. On the other hand, this isn't really UHC, as there will still be uninsured people under it.

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by: Matthew Gertz @ Wed Apr 12, 2006 at 20:57:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Devil's in the details. (0.00 / 0)

Near as I can tell, this isn't really a plan for universal health care. If implemented properly, it would certainly make it easier to get access to health insurance, and Destefano deserves credit for that, but what he's proposing won't ensure that everyone actually gets it.

Destefano's plan turns on two mechanisms:

  * It creates a private health insurance one-stop marketplace, the Connecticut HealthCare Consortium (CHC), from which small businesses, families and individuals can purchase health insurance coverage, thus combining the small business and individual markets to create a large risk pool to open up access and drive down costs.
  * It reforms the state’s corporate income tax structure to provide all businesses with the tax relief needed to provide affordable, portable, and prevention-based coverage to every family in Connecticut.

Basically, the plan would provide greater incentives for companies that provide health insurance to their workers, and penalties to those that do not. Those employed at companies that don't provide insurance, and the unemployed, would be able to buy private insurance through the CHC, which would provide a larger risk pool to lower prices.

The question, of course, is how big that risk pool gets, and how low insurance costs go, as well as the quality of insurance available through those plans. There will still probably be a gap somewhere in the plan, where people will be too poor to afford health insurance through the CHC and too rich to get access to other government insurance programs.

Still, it'd be a damn sight better than what we have now. Kudos to DeStefano for putting it out there.

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by: Matthew Gertz @ Wed Apr 12, 2006 at 20:56:34 PM UTC

Universal is the only answer (0.00 / 0)

Sick people buy their own health insurance. Healthy people do not.

Insurance rates are lower for businesses, but not because the risk pool is larger. It's because the risk pool is AVERAGE. Everyone in the company signs up for a health plan. The people who work as as likely to be sick as anyone else -- less likely, in fact, because they are able to go to work every day.

Any health plan where people voluntarily pay their own money is automatically going to be an expensive plan. Only sick people will join. Rates will go up, costs will sky rocket, the healthy will leave the plan, driving up costs further, etc.The program will eventually become a political liability.

The only way to get around this is to offer universal coverage. That way everyone pays into it, everyone benefits, and you can cut everyone's costs by 27% thanks to lower administrative overhead.

It's really quite simple. And the rest of the freakin' world has figured it out.


Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. - L. Cohen

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by: inkadu @ Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 02:01:23 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Theres a Governors race going on? (0.00 / 0)

Both Malloy and DeStefano are trying very hard to scream over what everyone paying attention right now knows what the real story is,THE SENATE RACE.

The 2 major issues are THE WAR and BUSH and neither of these guys is on the right side of these two to win as long as they are seen as Liebercrats.

Embrace te Base

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by: ctkeith @ Wed Apr 12, 2006 at 23:09:27 PM UTC

The Plan Has a Negative Effect on Women (0.00 / 0)

This appeared in a Hartford Courant article today:

To keep costs low for the basic plans, DeStefano said he would ask the General Assembly to waive several services now required by law, including pharmacy coverage for birth control pills, three-day hospital stays after a Caesarean delivery and at least an overnight stay after a mastectomy.

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctdestefano0413.artapr13,0,2135324.story?coll=hc-headlines-local

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by: Tony Anchillo @ Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 18:34:09 PM UTC

Will Viagra be covered under DeStefano's plan? (0.00 / 0)

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by: Larkspur @ Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 19:11:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

What about Plan B? (0.00 / 0)

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."--James Madison

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by: sufi @ Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 19:16:13 PM UTC

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I think Destefano should hear from women's groups on this. (0.00 / 0)

Those are some major important things the plan neglects to cover.

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by: Kim Hynes @ Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 22:13:00 PM UTC

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