Blue Jersey Discussion For The Day
Since property tax reform is going so well, I thought I\’d bring attention to a Philadelphia Inquireruniversal health insurance will be considered next. As our discussion today indicates, that doesn\’t sound so promising. On the other hand, the current situation is bad, and reform in Washington is not likely in the short term. Senator Joseph Vitale has been working on the plan quietly for some time. Unfortunately, we\’re talking about over a billion dollars per year.
Vitale says that if nothing is done: report that Governor Corzine says
\”We will have more uninsured, our costs will continue to spin out of control, employers will continue to drop coverage, people will get sicker, children will lose thousands of hours of school time, and the economy will suffer because adults have missed work because of preventable illness,\” said Vitale, chairman of the Senate Health Committee. \”Hospitals will be at even greater risk of insolvency… . And it will only get worse.\”
Plans requiring health insurance have been passed in Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine; California is seriously considering another. Here\’s why, even putting aside our state\’s financial mismanagement, it will be tougher here than in New England, according to a December 2006 article on the New Jersey in the Insurance Journal.
New Jersey has more than twice as many uninsured residents as the number living in those New England states combined, however. New Jersey\’s uninsured includes 614,000 who earn too much to qualify for existing subsidized programs, 400,000 who are in the state illegally, and 300,000 who are eligible for Medicaid or FamilyCare, but are not enrolled.
Anyway, at that time the plan was:
The state would offer one state-sponsored plan for people who do not have employer-based medical coverage. Low-income residents would pay on a sliding scale, depending on how much they make. The fees have not yet been determined. Everyone would be required to have health insurance, just like they are required to carry auto insurance. Businesses would not be required to offer coverage, just like the [sic] don\’t now.
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