Health Reform Gone Wrong
Last month, I pointed out that health-care reforms at the state level have not been terribly successful. One of the states I looked at was Maine, which promised in 2003 that all 128,000 of the state's uninsured citizens would be covered by 2009. But $155 million later, only about 3,400 are covered through the state's public insurance option, and the rate of uninsured has stayed roughly the same. Today, the New York Times takes look at the troubled reform efforts, many of which mirror national proposals now in Congress, and concludes:
Maine's history is a cautionary tale for national health reform. The state could never figure out how to slow the spiraling increase in medical costs, hobbling its efforts to offer more people insurance coverage. Many on Capitol Hill have criticized national reform legislation for similarly doing little to tame costs.