Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Great for Thee, but Not for Me

Categories: Massachusetts

What does the population of Massachusetts think of the state's "universal" health care plan? The answer depends on one's familiarity with the situation.

The Boston Globe says: "More than two-thirds of Massachusetts residents support the state's two-year-old, near-universal health insurance law, according to a new poll, but consumers most directly affected by the law are significantly less enthusiastic."

Support for the law, as suggested by the poll, is 69% overall, but substantially less (52%) of people who have actually been in the insurance market because of it.

More significantly, it appears that people are waking up to the ill effects of the law: "he percentage of those who think the uninsured are being hurt by the new law nearly doubled from 17 percent last year to 33 percent this year."

There's still a lot of "free lunch" or "tax someone else" understanding, with raising the cigarette tax being a favorite option for covering the inevitable shortfall. (So much for a program that saves money!)