Liberals Worry Socialist Health Care Not As Easy As It Looks

TPM Cafe reports:

For the past year, progressives have begun to talk about health care reform as if it is inevitable. After all, the polls show that the majority of taxpayers, employers and even most doctors want to see a major change. What’s stopping us?

I’m no longer as optimistic as I was six months ago. Recently, I spoke at a Massachusetts Medical Society Forum where what I heard about the Massachusetts plan made my heart sink. While everyone in Massachusetts wants health care reform, no one wants to pay for it. Those who are receiving state subsidies to buy insurance are enthusiastic. But uninsured citizens earning more than 300% of the poverty level are expected to purchase their own insurance. The state hoped that 228,000 of its uninsured citizens would sign up; as of last month, just 15,000 had enrolled. Many have decided that they would rather pay the penalty than buy health insurance.

At the forum, Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, talked about what Massachusetts’ experience might mean for the national health care debate: “Massachusetts is the canary in the coal mine,” Blendon, who is also a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health, declared bluntly. “If it’s not breathing in 2009, people won’t go in that mine.” If the Massachusetts plan unravels, he suggested, Washington’s politicians will say “If they can’t do it in a liberal state like Massachusetts, how can we do it here?"

The struggles of socialism.