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If you want a good result rather than chaos in the kitchen, you do all the planning and thinking before you start making the meal. Your recipes are out and your ingredients are ready. You know the end result you want and plan accordingly. Otherwise you can end up running to the supermarket to get what’s missing and making yourself crazy.

Every good cook understands that you have to look at the whole picture, not just one dish. Unfortunately, not everyone is so practical.

Take, for instance, the universal health insurance law passed in Massachusetts. Recently there was a headline in the Wall Street Journal: “Doctor Shortage Hurts Coverage-for-All-Plan.”

This article referred to the debacle happening in Massachusetts. Good intentions, no matter how well meaning, should not be acted upon until all the parts are in place. Thus, when the law for state-subsidized insurance was passed, it was doomed to failure. Instead of instituting universal coverage for all, it created a nightmare for many, especially those poor who most need the insurance.

It seems there are many in government who haven’t got a clue about the groundwork needed to bring their efforts to a successful ending.

Health reformers never took into account the fact that there weren’t enough primary care doctors to go around. It seems no one looked at the numbers and the reality of the situation. They were blinded, instead, by their ideal image. There is a very real shortage of primary-care doctors in Massachusetts.

In actuality, there is a shortage of primary-care doctors all around our country. The myth that all doctors are rich is just that, a myth. Primary-care doctors do not get the kind of pay that surgeons or specialists receive. They work longer hours for less pay.

Many primary-care doctors are not taking on more patients. Some are getting together and recreating themselves as concierge doctors. This means that they ask for a sum of money upfront from the patient. The patient is then able to get the doctor’s attention at any time without waiting, some even offering house calls as part of the package. The doctors get to choose which patients they want to take on.

In Massachusetts, the state-subsidized insurance doesn’t guarantee that a doctor will be available when you want one. What happened in Massachusetts can happen elsewhere. The more the government interferes with medical private practice, the less likely that youngsters will want to become doctors. What we see in Massachusetts is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Health reform won’t mean anything for the state’s poor if they can’t get a doctor’s appointment,” says Elmer Freeman in that Wall Street Journal story. He’s the director of the center for Community Health, Education, Research and Service in Boston. Worse yet, under this new law in Massachusetts residents who don’t sign up for coverage will pay a penalty on their state taxes.

Talk about how to make a good thing into a failure. Breaking someone’s rice bowl in the name of being good to all is just plain foolish.

The poor will always be with us. But creating another bureaucracy and taxing hard-working people to pay for it is not a recipe for success. Had the lawmakers used their brains, they would have realized they were just making another law that couldn’t work. Let’s hope other states take notice and do better by their citizens.

Next time a government starts to cook up a meal for everybody, the politicians should have all the ingredients on the table first. Maybe what we need is a few really fine chefs who know how to cook up a meal that everyone would want to eat.

Reach Barbara Bova at babovacolumn@aol.com.