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Health insurance law marks 2 year anniversary
By Matt Kakley April 11, 2008 ... On a day when politicians and health care advocates met at the State House to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the state's universal health care law, a local legislator who helped craft the law cautioned that the work is only beginning. While hundreds of thousands of Bay State residents are now insured, efforts are needed to lower health care costs for all in the state, said state Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge. "Our interest is not only making the new program affordable, but making everybody's health care affordable," he said. Moore said that cutting costs should be done, "not by giving up things, but by improving the quality and spending the money smarter." Moore, chairman of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, said he worked with Senate President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, on her proposal to rein in health care costs as the state struggles to balance next year's budget. The proposal would ban drug companies from giving gifts to doctors, as well as finance and promote a switch from paper medical records to an electronic system. Moore says the latter would save millions. It's "costing hospitals and doctors offices millions to store records that oftentimes they never use because they're so outdated," he said. "The law (currently) requires them to hold them for 30 years." According to Affordable Care Now, a coalition of health care advocates, about 340,000 residents have signed up for health insurance since then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed the law on April 12, 2006. Part of the 340,000 includes more than 176,000 residents who have signed up for Commonwealth Care, a subsidized health insurance program for low- and moderate-income families. The program's success was celebrated yesterday at an anniversary event at the State House. At the event, Moore was joined by Gov. Deval Patrick, Murray, and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, D-Boston, as well as health care advocates and members of the Massachusetts Health Connector Board, which was created by the state to oversee the new law. "Health care security provides invaluable comfort for individuals and their families," Patrick said. Madelyn Rhenisch of Brighton was the first person to enroll in Commonwealth Care. Rhenisch, who has been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, went without insurance for seven years after losing her full-time job. She was forced to spend her retirement savings on care. "I now can get the routine care I need and work on improving my health," Rhenish said. "I always thought I could handle any challenge by working hard," she said. "But you can only do that if you have the health to do it." The Senate expects to take up Murray's
proposal next week. Moore said that, if passed, the bill would have
positive results for the state. This story used courtesy of the Milford Daily News. |
