Universal Health Care Comes True

More than 45 million Americans have no health care insurance. It's a problem that only continues to get worse.

But the state of Massachusetts has engineered a breakthrough. The state legislature on Wednesday approved a groundbreaking universal health coverage plan that some say could become a model for the rest of the country. Under the plan, a half-million people currently uninsured would be required to have coverage. The bill would be paid for by federal and state funds, as well as individual and employer contributions.

This development has renewed talk of a national solution, and Jack Meyer, president of the Economic and Social Institute in Washington, joined The Early Show to discuss whether the Massachusetts plan could serve as a national model.

Meyer told co-anchor Hannah Storm that the breakthrough was largely a function of compromise. "Massachusetts looked at about 550,000 people without health coverage and decided they needed to set aside their partisan differences, their bickering, and they pulled together the best elements of Republican thinking and Democratic thinking," he said. "They shared the burden across consumers, employers, state government, the federal government, which is putting in money, and so they came up with a bipartisan approach — and they were willing to compromise. That's what's been missing so far."

When there has been talk of universal health care in the past, people have worried that it will put a staggering financial burden on individuals. Meyer said there are steps that can address that concern. "You have to provide subsidies for people that have low incomes on a sliding scale basis. You have to also reform the insurance market so that coverage is affordable — lower the administrative costs. Massachusetts has done that, and you have to spread the burden over all the citizens and not put it on certain people. Also, the hospitals and physicians in Massachusetts have been providing a lot of care without payment. You've got to help them. The key is for everyone to give something.
And to set this up so that you also cure some of the inefficiencies in the system and address the high costs."

Meyer told Storm the Massachusetts plan might not work as an exact model for the rest of the country, but that it is a promising example of how health care reform might move forward. "Health reform has been like a car with a dead battery. I think this will provide the jumper cables," he said. "I think we could do it with a five-year plan. I think we have a situation where health insurance premiums are going up at four times the rate of wages. So the American worker is caught in a squeeze … I think the lesson from Massachusetts is that if we get together and split the differences, and come up with compromise approaches, we don't have to turn the health care system upside down. We don't have to go to a socialized approach. We can do this within the context of our system."

The Massachusetts bill takes effect in July 2007, right around the time that Gov. Mitt Romney is expected to decide whether he will run for president in 2008.