The million dollar question, or is that trillion dollar question, is what happens when someone who was not eligible for insurance is able to obtain insurance.Fortunately, we have two states that allow us to draw some conclusions. First, is Massachusetts which comes closer than any other state to universal health insurance. The second is Oregon which has a lottery for people to qualify for health insurance if they cannot afford it.
From Massachusetts we know that health insurance has great financial impact for the person covered. The financial burden of health care to individuals decreases greatly. The Oregon experience is the same in that those with health insurance had lower poverty levels than those without insurance. This experience mirrors national insurance history in that prior to Medicare almost one in three seniors lived in poverty while now that percentage has dropped to one in eight.
An argument universal health care insurance proponents used was a potential monetary saving would be realized due to an increase in preventive care, but that just has not proven true. In Massachusetts the cost to insure almost everyone has caused insurance rates to increase and the state program costs are running about 10 times higher than originally projected. Oregon has had a similar experience in that its costs have increased, not decreased since the lottery was initiated. We also have anecdotal evidence with Medicare and Medicaid as the cost for procedures has risen greater than inflation for almost every year that the program has existed, not to mention they are drastically underfunded.
So, we can conclude that health insurance clearly benefits the individual, but how does society pay for it and how do we combat the escalating costs?
http://www.telegram.com/article/20120624/COLUMN73/106249764/1002/BUSINESS
