'Affordable' health care

Health | Should Connecticut follow Massachusetts’ lead? | Victoria Holowink

I haven't been to a doctor in over 10 years," Mike Kochis boasted from behind the counter of Ashley's Ice Cream, a favorite New Haven, Conn., late-night hang-out spot for Yale students. Wearing a weathered "Life is good" hat, the 30-year-old described himself as a "super-super college senior" and readily stated that he has not purchased any health insurance. Though Ashley's offers a policy through the company that would pay half of Mr. Kochis' insurance costs, he said the cost is still too high, and assumes that he will not have a medical emergency.

If Mr. Kochis lived in Massachusetts, he would be one of the people whose situation Gov. Mitt Romney's new universal health insurance plan, passed last month, would seek to remedy. Mr. Romney asserts that 40 percent of Massachusetts residents are like Mr. Kochis: not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, not rich enough to afford their own private insurance. Floating in a health insurance vacuum, they are unlikely to obtain preventative care and often end up needing expensive emergency care. By federal law, hospitals cannot deny anyone life-saving treatment due to inability to pay, so hospitals and taxpayers bleed out the money.