SPIN: "The over $39,000,000. (for 2009 alone) cost of running the Commonwealth Connector Board is necessary, justified and reasonable."

TRUTH: In 2008, the Connector Board's administrative staff of 43 employees has a salary total of $4,345,274.00 or $101,052.88 average per employee. This fact and more are shown in this Boston Herald article, "Your tax dollars at work: 2008 Commonwealth Health Insurance Health Connector Employee Payroll". If you calculate by the hour, as listed in the article, Executive Director Jon Kingsdale's salary is $4,456.73 per week or $111.42 per hour. Assistant Director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Health Connector, Jaimie H. Bern, made $71,875.00 in 2008 for working a 25 hour week. 
That's $2,875 per week or $115 per hour!

In an August 2009 article titled "Health Care Agency’s Payroll Bloated", the Boston Herald reports that "Despite the national spotlight on its first-in-the-nation work, the Connector agency has in just a year and a half larded its bureaucracy with a dozen directors and assistant directors, and 14 bosses with the word “manager” in their titles. It also doled out 3 percent raises this year." Some Connector employees make more in an hour than what many people earn in a day, all while penalizing residents who can’t afford their health insurance products. It's no wonder that they think that everyone else can afford it. 

The Health Connector Authority had a $4,000,000 budget for public relations and marketing in 2007 including a multimillion- dollar contract to advertise during Red Sox games. Much of the Connector's budget goes to paying 8% to 14% premiums to insurance companies. The state also paid various non-profit groups a total of $3.5 million during the first two years for outreach and enrollment grants to explain and deal with the incessant enrollment,
disenrollment and re-enrollment problems in the complicated, bureaucratic morass that is Massachusetts health care reform. It continues to pay MassHealth about $5,298,548.00 annually to determine eligibility and assign monthly premium costs to residents. A motor vehicle accident ad buy in 2008 cost the state $1 million. The recent 2009 TV ads to promote the Connector were probably around the same cost. The media industry has financial incentive to ignore these realities because of the huge and lucrative advertising from the Connector as well as hospitals and insurance companies.

The current scope of work for 2009 that the Connector has contracted with its ad agency, Weber Shandwick, is estimated to cost up to $1.8 million—any additional fees and expenses to be approved by Connector. The blended hourly rate for staff services is $190 per hour for Weber Shandwick. Costs for media and advertising buys and production, along with hard costs associated with other potential initiatives will be negotiated in the framework of the contract price as the planning proceeds. The cost structure for this engagement is the same as was in effect in the previous contract with Weber Shandwick, and does not include a commission on the media buy. The FY09 $8.7 million contract with Perot Systems provides for the out-of-state call center, billing and information technology.

According to the Boston Globe the Connector has budgeted $3.3 million, which is nearly 10% of it's FY2009 budget, to fund to cost an anticipated 8,000 appeals.

These expenditures are probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the cost of the Connector's operations.

The administrative budget recommended for 2010 is $33,072,966 million. 
Feel free to check out the Connector’s lofty goal to become the “Travelocity of Health Insurance” - our health care strategized, marketed and sold for profit!

All of the above wasted millions could add up to a lot of doctor visits and other needed and deserved medical care.    

Spin: "Connector and MassHealth plans provide stable, dependable and continuous health care to those who need it."

Truth: One of the problems inherent with this highly fragmented and sometimes seemingly haphazard framework of is the practice of 'redetermination'. 

A tangled, bureaucratic maze of redetermination has been invented in order to make sure that every individual is still eligible for their current level of insurance. The process of yearly paperwork (or whenever income or family circumstances change) involves filling out the 7-page form all over again. This must be done and returned within 45 days or removal from the insurance rolls (disenrollment) is automatic. The cumbersome re-enrollment process must be initiated as if the person was never covered in the first place. This leaves the person without insurance for up to two months and can cause loss of established doctor, loss of medical records and loss of continuity of care. 
This is called churn and is a big , expensive and accepted part of the system.

Redetermination also occurs if there has been any change in any family member's income, family circumstances or location. This process involves filling out the intrusive Eligibility Review Form (ERV) all over again and it must be submitted so it is received within 45 days or removal from the insurance rolls is automatic. You must do this even if your income change was temporary. Let's say you have a chance to earn some extra money over a two-week period - you'd better think twice about accepting this opportunity because you risk an increase in your monthly premium that may not be affordable. And, whether your income goes up or down, you could be bounced to a different plan which may necessitate the task of having to find other doctors, care centers and hospitals. Even if your income change is annual, this type of set-up is a disincentive to earning more. 

According to Connector documents, between April and July 2008 the subsidized plans had 60,681 enrollments and 62,672 disenrollments, for a net loss of 1,991 members. There were 45,803 terminations in the four months prior to June 2009. 

Over the course of two years, Commonwealth Care has had about as many disenrollments as enrollments for many of the reasons described on this site and more that we don’t have space to discuss. The Connector likes to say that many of the disenrollments are due to residents taking employer-sponsored insurance. We find this to be a stretch. Commonwealth Care enrollment was virtually flat for most of the past year and showed a decrease from 176,307 in September 2008 to 165,003 in March 2009 - a difference of 11,304 individuals as we have previously mentioned. Did most of these folks suddenly find jobs with employer-sponsored insurance? Where did they go and what did this disruption cost them? What did it cost the state to process these terminations much less what has it cost to most likely re-enroll them? 

People who have been rejected from the Commonwealth Care system for whatever reason are not eligible for the Health Safety Net and so are truly on their own and are likely to accrue huge, uncompensated medical debt. Chances are they will not be able to afford preventative or other medical care and could likely accrue huge medical debt if they or become very ill.

This practice clearly shows that people do not have the reliable insurance that the mandate "spin" claims to provide, but instead works to prevent it.

In tandem, sinking state and national economies continue to force massive benefit cuts and rate hikes as services and provider compensation are  simultaneously curbed, thus rendering stable and dependable subsidized health insurance impossible under the Massachusetts plan. 

This should be a lesson for the entire country.

The Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP) study of the Massachusetts model found that this health insurance mandate, “instead of reducing costs, has been more expensive than expected. The budget overruns have forced the state to siphon about $150 million from safety-net providers such as public hospitals and community clinics.”  See article here.

SPIN: “Privacy of medical records will be safe within the over 20 state, Federal and private agencies that will have access to personal health information.”

TRUTH:  Please see DATA GATHERING . This is VERY IMPORTANT.

SPIN: "New electronic medical records save lots of money and lead to better care."

TRUTH: This assertion is, as yet, unproven. Computer systems and technical support are are costly to providers and the security of these electronic records is questionable. Ask TJX what a data breach costs. See DATA GATHERING. 

SPIN: "A single payer system would cover all Americans and provide substantial savings, but such a plan is unaffordable and politically impossible."

TRUTH: It has been proven time and time again that at least 30% of all health care dollars are wasted on administrative costs and profit-taking by investors. It has also been shown that if that money were dedicated to actual medical care, there would actually be both a cost savings and a significant benefit to our country as a whole.

If by "politically impossible" they mean that the lobbyists and campaign donors will disapprove, then yes, this is the truth. If this is the case, we need to replace our politicians. It appears that it is a case of pandering politicians and wealthy special interest groups against the people. The fact is that well over 75% of the American population want a simplified, single-payer health care system, not the fragmented, harmful and indefensible mess that is bleeding our country dry. 

Make no mistake, Washington doesn't care if you can see a doctor or not. They want to reward their best contributors. Even the ultimate American individual, John Wayne, got sick and died. Of course, he was rich and so could get good medical care, which added years to his life. Many are not so lucky.

Massachusetts was chosen to be the the "petrie dish" for this "landmark experiment". To quote Justice Louis D. Brandeis, "It is one of the happy accidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory, and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." The trouble is that we did not choose this. The politicians did. Now, the rest if the Union must take the lesson and reject what we have learned.

There is no room for politics within the topic of medical care. 
Medical care is about people - not profits.
  See true single payer discussion 

INFORM PEOPLE ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF THIS SHAM LAW 
and help REJECT a similar assault on hard-working Americans! 

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