One of the stranger Massachusetts-healthcare-statistics-challenged press reports I've seen lately came from Robert Weisman of the Boston Globe on Saturday January 8. He claimed
"Officials from the Massachusetts office of the US Department of Health and Human Services sought to bolster (Secretary) Sebelius’ case (that repealing the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- PPACA -- was bad for Massachusetts)... by releasing estimates that more than 9,800 young adults here would lose insurance coverage through their parents’ health plans if the law is repealed.
"The (Health and Human Services) officials also said that nearly 4.5 million state residents with private insurance would be subject to lifetime limits on how much insurance companies spend on their health care, which is forbidden under the (2010) law."
To be fair to Weisman, he is probably a straight beat reporter and he has to report whatever comes out of Health and Human Services, even if it didn't sound like such dire failings could have possibly slipped through the cracks in the Massachusetts legislature for five years. Remember Romneycare not only goes back to its 2006 passage but there have been three or four subsequent re-dos of Romneycare (depends on whether you want to count the dozens of changes slipped quietly into the October 2010 Supplemental 2011 Budget).
But before I could spend any time checking these facts, which sounded fishy to me because I would be part of that 4.5 million (that is, not yet part of the 2.0 million Massachusetts residents on Medicare/Medicaid/etc) and my insurer (one of the largest) says it has no lifetime limits, here comes the Boston Globe's Deborah Kotz on Sunday January 9 saying the same thing I was thinking. She spent the time to look up the facts. Kotz says:
"Oddly, the press release (about the statistics proving PPACA repeal would be bad for Massachusetts) made no mention of the fact that Mass. had already implemented many of the federal provisions in its own 2006 state law... I'm fairly certain that Mass. residents would be far less impacted than Virginians or Iowans -- who don't have universal coverage laws -- if the federal law was repealed...The press release also seems to ignore the fact that the state already had provisions in its health coverage law that the federal government merely tweaked in the PPACA.
"For instance, the press release states if the federal law was repealed: "9,830 young adults would lose their insurance coverage through their parents' health plans... Actually, the 2006 Massachusetts law required coverage for children who are no longer dependents but limited it to two years after they became independent or upon reaching age 26, whichever came first.
"The press release also stated that "nearly 4.5 million residents of Massachusetts with private insurance coverage would suddenly find themselves vulnerable again to having lifetime limits placed on how much insurance companies will spend on their health care." But that's not exactly true since Massachusetts' health insurance carriers participating in the Health Connector, the state's insurance exchange, already didn't have coverage caps, according to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services."
Just so you know, the "insurance carriers participaing in the Health Connector" include all the companies most of you care about.
And, according to Kotz, the release stated (not mentioned in Weisman story in Globe) the if the federal law was repealed, 236,000 folks in Mass. would be "at risk of losing their insurance at the moment they needed it most" since insurance companies would "once again be allowed to cut off someone's coverage unexpectedly when they are in an accident or become sick because of a simple mistake on an application." Again this language is inaccurate since Mass. law prohibits insurance companies from dropping enrollees due to preexisting conditions.
I guess Kotz doesn't talk to Weisman.
-- Dennis Byron