Whatever…

Mass mayhem

Just out of a meeting in which we shared with employees the news about their health insurance coverage, namely that it will cost more but not be any better, I came across a report underwritten by the Pew Center on the States. Entitled “Grading the States”, the report gives Masssachusetts poor marks - worse than the state’s scores in 2005 - for its budget process, the management of its public workforce, the setting of performance goals, and especially for the state’s infrastructure. If it’s comforting to you, only New Hampshire and Rhode Island got worse grades, and New England as a whole, excepting only Connecticut, got lousy marks.

What does this have to do with health insurance? Well, Massachusetts has taken on state mandated health insurance coverage, and the program is turning out to be astonishingly more expensive than was estimated, only partly because more residents have signed up than were expected to do so. Anyhow, the state’s requirements have inspired health insurers to re-rate their benefit plans, and companies such as ours, which offer full-featured coverage to our employees and pay up to 75% of the premium costs, took a 15% whack for the upcoming health insurance year. Of course, the employee share of the premium hike also rises 15%. And, there is no enhancement of the coverage. Pay more, get the same or less, that’s the formula.

So, let’s see, the state is a bad manager of all that it does - according to independent analysis and in comparison to the performances of other states. Nevertheless, in light of this report card on state management, we’ll give the government health care to oversee. That’s Mayflower State decision making, I guess. (By the way, Utah and Washington state, got the best marks in the Pew study.