Universal Healthcare Math

Healthcare in the Commonwealth is totally affordable, unless you get sick. The Commonwealth Connector is taking up debate on the latest plan to provide the legislative mandate for affordable healthcare. We did some simple math on the issue: $2,000 deductible in a year comes out to about $167 per month (if you hit the deductible that year). The premium would be a lot lower than initially discussed – coming in at around $175 per month. Add the two numbers together and you get $342. That's not too far off the initial number that came out, $380 per month for coverage. Still a far cry from the $200 Mitt promised.

It's not time to pout quite yet. Progress has been made to provide affordable healthcare for the citizens of the Commonwealth. The initial plan would have required all residents to meet a minimum standard of healthcare coverage, and that minimum would have come in at $380 if the individual used the coverage for medical care or not. The new coverage has a high deductible, meaning that if the coverage was used the cost would creep up pretty quickly towards the maximum monthly contribution of $342 under the newest proposal. The Globe reports that there are all sorts of plans that will be available under the plan. Different age groups and families will be eligible for different types of coverage that could drive the monthly contribution above $342 – and perhaps even above the $380 mark. It's one of those tricky benefit questions, like when you take a job with a nonprofit. Often the salary is lower but the benefits are awarded at a higher rate, the Human Resource office will likely tout stats about how the salary you'll make is comparable when you factor in the value of the benefits.

What was once touted as a landmark move to provide universal healthcare to the residents of the state has now become a bit of a political quagmire. We're not all that surprised that it's taken this turn, but it has. The light at the end of the tunnel may be in the form of higher deductibles, but we'll have to wait and see what the Commonwealth Connector has to say about it all.

Image of yet another health insurance related sign from Flickr user Ben Woosley