Kudos to Gov. Patrick for Holding the Line on Health Insurance Rate Hikes

A few weeks back I wrote an editorial wondering aloud if Gov. Deval Patrick would have the gumption to use his power to limit health insurance rate hikes for individual and small business plans this year. You may recall that the major insurers were asking for hikes of up to 35 percent for these plans. Well, maybe because it's an election year and he's facing off against a Republican - Charlie Baker - who is an insurance company executive. Or maybe it's because he's had enough of annual price gouging by insurers. But whatever the reason, Open Media Boston applauds his holding most of the proposed rate hikes to a more reasonable 4 percent this year.

Of course, Patrick's move does not hold down costs on corporate health plans. And, as ever, it leaves the insurance companies free to use their considerable political and financial muscle to push back hard against the predictable drop in their profit margin. But it won't stop insurers from continuing to make a pretty penny on the back of Massachusetts working families. Nor will it solve the mounting problems with the state's health care system - which forces individual participation in a system that benefits insurers far more than it improves people's health.

Given the insurance companies' victory over the public good with the passage of President Barrack Obama's national version of the Massachusetts health care system, progressive reformers will have an long uphill slog towards reigning in the power of the insurance lobbby and winning anything like a single-payer health care system at either the state or national level.

On the other hand, people are clearly angry about the disaster that is health care in America these days. So with a tough enough fight, we might see a powerful second round of struggle on health care reform much sooner than the oft-predicted 20 years hence. I hope that fightback builds up a good head of steam soon. Tens of thousands of people will continue to die from inadequate health care every year until it does.