BOSTON (AP) - The Massachusetts treasurer said Tuesday that
Congress will "threaten to wipe out the American economy within
four years" if it adopts a health care overhaul modeled after the
Bay State's.

Treasurer Timothy Cahill - a former Democrat running as an
independent for governor - said the local plan enacted in 2006 has
succeeded only because of huge subsidies and favorable regulatory
changes from the federal government.

He asked, "Who, exactly, is going to bail out the federal
government if this plan goes national?"

Cahill made his remarks after Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat,
accused him and Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker of
being silent amid the state and national health care debates.

Cahill cited quotations in which he has called for the state to
abandon its plan, and for the federal government not to match it.

He also gave reporters a copy of a recent state ledger sheet,
showing the state's Medicaid program ballooning from $7.5 billion
to a projected $9.2 billion since the plan was adopted. Meanwhile,
of the 407,000 newly insured, only 32 percent paid for private
insurance wholly by themselves.

The remainder have received partial or total taxpayer subsidies
to buy the insurance coverage required by the plan.

The Obama administration is asking the House and Senate to
approve a national plan that includes a similar "individual
mandate," as well as an entity designed to match buyers with
private health insurance plans.

Cahill said the Massachusetts equivalent, the Connector, had
assisted only 5 percent of those who bought private insurance
without any type of government assistance.

And he said that while the Massachusetts program has increased
access to health insurance, it has nothing to rein in underlying
cost increases, meaning it is steering more people to a broken
system.

"If President (Barack) Obama and the Democrats repeat the
mistake of the health insurance reform adopted here in
Massachusetts on a national level, they will threaten to wipe out
the American economy within four years," the treasurer said.

Cahill's comments came as the administration launched three days
of hearings on rising health care costs in Massachusetts that
threaten the 2006 law.

Patrick said the state has to come up with ways to ease the
burden of soaring premiums on struggling businesses, individuals
and families. Insurance premiums in Massachusetts rose more than 12
percent over a two-year period.

"We have to stop the sharp annual rise in health care costs and
find lasting solutions," the governor said.

Despite the rising costs of health care, businesses in
Massachusetts continue to offer insurance to their workers at far
higher rate than employers in other states, according to the state
Division of Health Care Finance and Policy.

In 2009, 76 percent of Massachusetts employers offered insurance
to their employees, compared with 60 percent of employers
nationwide.

Part of the problem of rising costs is that private health plans
can pay widely different prices for the same procedure, according
to HCFP Commissioner David Morales.

In 2008, the price paid for a normal delivery ranged from just
over $3,000 to nearly $9,000. The highest price for a
gastric-bypass procedure was more than seven times the lowest.