In Massachusetts, 430 people are losing their health care every day during this economic crisis. Nationally, 14,000 people are losing their health insurance every day. ... The average family premium in Massachusetts costs $500 more because our broken health care system fails to cover everyone. Nationally, the average family premium costs $1,100 more. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts holds 50 percent of the market. They control 67 percent of the market together with one other company, Tufts Health Plan. Half of all people filing for home foreclosure nationwide in 2008 cited medical problems as a cause. Health care costs for small businesses have grown by 30 percent since 2000, and our manufacturers spend more per hour on health care than manufacturers in Canada, Japan,
and the United Kingdom combined. Health system modernization can save $600 billion over 10 years.
The Coburn-Burr alternative unravels the employer-based system and keeps insurance companies in charge. The Coburn-Burr plan does not provide sufficient protection for patients against abusive insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-
existing conditions. Insurance companies today use the flimsiest reasons to deny people coverage. For example, a woman in Los Angeles was denied coverage for her breast cancer because
she failed to disclose that she had visited a dermatologist. Under the Coburn plan, insurance companies could continue this practice-called
"rescission"-which "has left thousands of Americans burdened with costly medical
bills despite paying insurance premiums," according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Coburn-Burr plan would also unravel the employer-based system and replace it with
an insufficient tax credit that doesn't even cover half of the average family's medical costs.
The $5,700 per-family tax subsidy proposed in the Coburn plan is less than half of the
$12,680 that the average American family paid for health care in 2008.
