More proof Obamacare will not work

The lead article in Thursday’s Boston Globe should be required reading for our president, and all those in Congress who are still pushing for Obama’s health care legislation. The Massachusetts health care law, upon which Obamacare is based, is falling apart at the seams.

Between 2006, when the program began, and 2009, the state’s cost for health care increased by an amazing 42 percent, with insurance premium increases running not too far behind.

Recognizing that this pace is unsustainable, Governor Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) has introduced a 40 page bill in the legislature in an attempt to reverse this trend.  Here’s his plan…the state insurance commissioner must be given the power to cap health care prices.

Rates hospitals and other health providers charge insurers would be ‘presumptively disapproved as excessive’ if they increased faster than the level of medical inflation, and they could be rejected after a public hearing.

Personally, I can’t think of a better way to encourage doctors to stay in Massachusetts (or to locate there, for that matter) than by telling them that there will be a cap on the fees they charge.  What about hospitals…why would they ever expand, or purchase the latest technology if they know they may never be able to recover those costs?  And, that new high tech ambulance…well, maybe not.

But, what I found most interesting about the article was the comments from the readers.  Although I didn’t read them all, I now understand that Scott Brown’s election was no fluke.  Only a very few were flattering of either the Massachusetts health care plan in general, or the governor, in particular.  One of the comments (found at the bottom of the second page of comments) is:

It amuses me that the governor is trying to create bad legislation to correct a problem caused by bad legislation in the first place.

I think that pretty much says it all.