Health insurance credits `doomed,'

By John Strahinich

Tuesday, February 8, 2005



A Bay State family of four making $36,800 a year would have to spend 17 percent of its pretax income to get the cheapest individual health insurance policy on the market, according to researchers at Harvard University's School of Public Health.



That's one huge reason proposals to use tax credits to help middle-class families pay for individual health insurance premiums are ``doomed to failure,'' said Harvard's Nancy Turnbull, who helped write the new Commonwealth Fund study comparing health insurance policies in seven states, including Massachusetts.



``It's like taking out a health care mortgage,'' Turnbull added. ``That just shows you the size of the tax credits needed.''



Added report co-author Nancy Kane: ``The market can serve healthy people who don't need insurance, or sick people who do. But it has a hard time serving both.''



Turnbull credits the commonwealth with doing a better job than most states of balancing those two consumer groups. ``On average, prices are higher here,'' she said, ``but coverage is more broadly available.''



Even so, both authors are advocates of helping the working uninsured buy into group programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.