By: Resty

Resty — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 17:56:20 +0000

I agree with Mass Resident and phoned my suggestion in last week to both Patrick and Kirwan. I haven’t noticed that anyone on Beacon Hill offered to cut their salaries, but Patrick didn’t mind laying off another 1,000 people last week in this jobless, horrific economy.And they all want to keep Connector Authority CEO Kingsdale who earns $111.42 per hour or $4,456.73 per week while you are penalized if you can’t afford health insurance. (You may not be able to afford the penalties, either which are enforced as income tax evasion. Hey, wait a minute there’s some income tax revenue! Blood money!)To add insult to injury, earlier this year, Patrick proudly announced on NECN that the D.O.R. had collected $7.9 mil for 2007 from taxpayers who couldn’t afford to purchase the MA affordable health insurance subsidized or otherwise. That was money we needed to pay our bills. We should have given him a medal of honor.The Connector Authority, a glorified insurance brokerage firm, is not needed as MassHealth is handling most of the work and receives $5,298,548; the Connector administrative salaries for 43 employees amount to $4,345,274, and there was a $4,000,000 budget for PR and marketing last year including a multimillion-dollar contract to advertise during Red Sox games which has been reduced to a paltry $1.8 mil for 2009.According to the Globe, the Connector has budgeted $3.3 million which is nearly 10 percent of its FY09 budget to fund the cost of an anticipated 8,000 exemptions. The state has paid various non-profit groups a total of $3.5 million for outreach grants in order to enroll, explain and/or handle the complicated, bureaucratic non-system that is MA health care reform and to deal with incessant enrollment, involuntary disenrollment and re-enrollment problems.These costs amount to $17,143,822 and are probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the cost of the Connector’s operations. The motor vehicle accident ad “buy” that ran earlier this year cost the state $1 mil and how about those posters in the MTA and on the buses threatening taxpayers with the steep 2008 penalties? And does this amount include the Golden Parachutes of the 11 Connector people earning six-figure salaries? I doubt it. That’s probably in another fund we pay for.Also, nineteen new state agencies have been created as a result of the health insurance law with an approximate total of 149 members who may or may not receive a stipend for their work. (Haven’t checked this out yet, but I’m sure we’re footing the bill for the paper that’s being pushed and other office overhead at least.)By the way, Between April and July 2008, 62,672 residents in the Commonwealth Care plans were disenrolled. What was the financial and medical burden on these residents and what did this cost the state (taxpayers)?All taxpayers are footing the bill for the MA health insurance scheme that is being spun as a success and model for the nation. At least 72 percent in the state-subsidized plans receive the insurance for free, and enrollment drops off from there and has been flat since January 1. That tells you the premiums are not affordable, but these rocket scientists keep raising them anyways which tells you that it’s all about profit, not access to health care. For toppers, there is no retroactive coverage due to administrative errors (involuntary disenrollment) (for budgetary purposes).Vote YES on Question 1 and let our self-serving legislature, governor et al figure out what to do. We’re fed up with being jammed by them. Show us some respect!

Comments on: Qualifying for Medicaid under MassHealth | 3 Main Reasons for a Medicaid Denial.

By: Resty