The hidden costs of health care

Robert Samuelson looks at health care proposals across the U.S. and here in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts:

Look at Massachusetts. Last year, then-Gov. Mitt Romney made headlines bysigning legislation to cover all the state's uninsured. The law required that those whose income exceeded three times the federal poverty line buy "affordable" insurance (those with incomes below that threshold would be subsidized on a sliding scale). Romney suggested that annual premiums for a single worker might total $2,400. But when insurance companies recently provided real estimates, the cost was much higher: $4,560. Is it sensible policy to force workers making $30,000 -- about triple the poverty line -- to spend almost a sixth of their pretax income on health insurance, as opposed to food, rent or transportation? Good question.

And one that should have been studied, answered, and considered before Romney plunged headlong into legislation affecting millions of Bay Staters. Also, Samuelson gives praise to President Bush’s dead-on-arrival proposal for reform plan, if only because it seeks to reveal the true cost of health care to Americans, who don’t see (and don’t care) as long as employers are picking up the tab.