$16.4 million would pay for 1344 couples (including $2000 deductible for each person covered), or an even 2000 couples (4000 people) without the deductible. Gross.

I live in Mass., and I work in health care (at least for the moment- if one of our 11/4 ballot questions passes and the state income tax goes away, I'll likely be out on the pavement as a goodly portion of our operating budget comes from said state) in Dorchester, a mostly underserved (read poor) section of Boston. As noted above, the lowest cost plan is in the 8K buy-in, 2K deductible range- this for people who are, foolishly, much more likely to spend that money (provided they even have it) on trivial incidentals like food and shelter. Not to blame Repubs for everything, but this was enacted under Mitt Romney's watch (although with the indulgence of the Dem's in the legislature); the last such measure, under the reign of A. P. Cellucci (R-Canada or Hollywood, I think), was the enaction of state-sponsored third party insurers that worked through the state Medicaid program and reaped the rewards of that arrangement like Ted Stevens in a Home Depot parking lot, and continue to do so. The whole system (and this is not an original thought, just one I wholeheartedly agree with) has to implode before anything constructive can begin to be reassembled from the leftover pieces. The bandaid solutions above have never worked, but cynically, I don't think that they were ever intended to. Unfortunately, I don't see Medicare-for-all on the horizon until it's overwhelmingly evident that the current system is a flaming plane crash, and even then, it's iffy at best. Hey, this was my first post- my apologies for its, um,... blatheriosity.

Sounds like you're closer to the situation than many of us Massers, I'd be interested in hearing more details.

Please, go on....

I love this job!