Cost and coverage are not the same

I want to thank the Los Angeles Times for offering a very nuanced, if brief summary of Massachusetts' new law for unversal health care. For once, a reporter caught on to the fact that universal health care - while an extremely important step for justice - does little to address rising health care costs. While expanded health care coverage should reduce emergency room care by allowing people to seek less expensive preventive care, it does not actually reduce the cost of treatments or the administrative overhead of health care providers.

Note: While it does mandate that all people buy health insurance, with subsidies for the poor, the Massachusetts system will not require all employers to offer health insurance (and even when they do, they fee for non-compliance is small). It will be interesting to see how this impacts the health-care-through-employer model over time.