It looks that way.
Without addressing cost-control before promising universal coverage, the Massachusetts plan is drowning in debt and had threatened to fold without federal financial support.
If enacted nationally, who will bail out Washington?
Did the Massachusetts health plan just get bailed out?
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The guy in the mirror.
At first, the doctors would be “bailing out” the patient, by effectively lending the costs of service when the government doesn’t pay, and then eventually the patient, when the doctor has exhausted his willingness or ability to function as a consumer lender.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
A government system will require real costs and consumption controls, meaning real and firm rationing and overall controls on transaction costs, including liability insurance costs. There will be no other way.
Would inaction be preferable? All to often, nothing changes because it is too difficult to resolve every little detail…ok, maybe in this case its a great BIG detail. But at least some sort of progress is being made.