"To Baker, R.I. pullout was right move" by Kay Lazar, Globe Staff | September 29, 2010
In December 1999, an ailing Harvard Pilgrim Health Care pulled out of Rhode Island with two months’ notice, shuttering the company’s three health centers there and forcing 1,200 physicians and other employees to search for new jobs. Thousands of patients suddenly had to find new doctors, and about 128,000 subscribers scrambled for other health insurance.
The Ocean State accounted for about 10 percent of Harvard Pilgrim’s customers but 45 percent of its losses, and to save the company, new chief executive Charles D. Baker essentially cut off its Rhode Island leg....
Eleven years later, Baker, 53, is the Republican candidate for governor of Massachusetts, and he often points to his decade at the helm of Harvard Pilgrim as an example of the leadership he would bring to Beacon Hill.
I suppose it is a start, but people usually start at the other end.
Hey, the Globe started it.
He talks about how he rescued the insurance company from the brink of bankruptcy in 1999, in part by slashing the payroll, and transformed it into the top-ranked health plan in the country.
The extent to which the state aided the company’s turnaround, and the size of premium increases, have been the focus of sharp exchanges between Baker and his opponents, Governor Deval Patrick, Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, and Dr. Jill Stein, but the Rhode Island chapter has barely been mentioned.
Yet the experience, say Baker supporters and critics, illustrates his proclivity for dramatic and sometimes controversial cutbacks to tackle tough financial problems.
Isn't that what we want in the tax-happy, loot-your-pocket state?
While Baker was forced to operate in crisis mode in his early years at Harvard Pilgrim, he later focused on rebuilding the company’s reputation with physicians, employers, and patients. By the time he left last year to mount his campaign, the state’s second-largest health insurer was profitable and had 1.1 million customers, almost as many as it had before its near-collapse.
See: The Final Word on Charlie Baker
Now, Baker says, if he is elected he intends to take his Harvard Pilgrim business blueprint to the state’s corner office.
“I’m sure there were a lot of people who thought a lot of what I did was unreasonable, but at the end of the day, most of it worked,’’ Baker said in a recent interview with the Globe.
Fallout in Rhode Island
Harvard Pilgrim’s departure from Rhode Island sparked an uproar, prompting public hearings by regulators and lawmakers. Officials criticized the company and Baker for abandoning the state with little notice and few answers about how the company would pay its outstanding debts there.
Harvard Pilgrim was not just an insurance company in Rhode Island. The company also employed doctors, nurses, and teams of health care providers, and ran clinics and pharmacies that served its HMO members. So the pullout meant patients not only had to find new coverage, but new doctors, specialists, and even places to fill their prescriptions....
Rhode Island lawmakers, including US Representative Patrick Kennedy, accused Baker of misleading customers and regulators about the company’s true intentions right up to the moment it announced it was leaving. The chief executive of Citizens Financial Group testified at a tense State House hearing, according to news reports, that the insurer never mentioned that it might go out of business as it continued to negotiate a new contract with the employer through the summer and early fall....
Things got even rockier for Harvard Pilgrim after that. Baker’s new team discovered a $58.5 million accounting error that pushed the company’s projected losses to over $200 million in 2000. The company alerted Massachusetts regulators, who placed the insurer into receivership for five months, a move similar to bankruptcy. The state maintained more limited financial oversight over Harvard Pilgrim until 2006, but the company did not receive taxpayer dollars as part of the state assistance.
Other dramatic actions would follow. The company hit customers with double-digit price hikes after years of modest increases. And as nearly half its 1.3 million customers dropped the plan, Harvard Pilgrim cut its employee head count by 50 percent over the next two years. Roughly half of its 4,000 employees either lost their jobs, left on their own, or were outsourced, many for lower pay, to a company owned by Texas billionaire and former presidential candidate Ross Perot....
Looks like the Globe is drawing some blood itself.
Health care providers who once dreaded dealing with Harvard Pilgrim because it took forever to get paid now say it is the best insurer to deal with....
By the time Baker left in July 2009, however, the company was in the black, with a net income of $52.3 million in his last full year.
Just something about for-profit(?) health care that bother me.
For engineering the turnaround, the chief executive was richly rewarded. His total compensation in 2008 was $1.7 million, and he made $1.3 million in just seven months in 2009. That was roughly in line with what the executives of the two other major health insurers in the state made....
I'm not happy about that; however, right now I'm just tired of the attempts to generate class envy as a political issue when the real problem is that TAXES ARE TOO HIGH all across the board!!
Baker said his top priority would be transparency. Requiring providers to publicly post their prices, he said, would help close large discrepancies in what hospitals and doctors charge for services.
It’s a phenomenon that Baker himself helped bring about.
As state health and human services secretary in the 1990s, he approved the merger of Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals to create Partners HealthCare, which has since become a Goliath in Greater Boston’s health care market.
Partners is one of a number of Massachusetts hospital companies that, because of reputation, specialized services, or geographic isolation, has the clout to demand higher prices from insurers. Baker learned this firsthand when in 2001 he reluctantly agreed to steep fee increases for Partners because employers wouldn’t choose health plans without Partners’ hospitals and doctors. The cost was passed on to Harvard Pilgrim’s customers....
Also see:
Memory Hole: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
The Massachusetts Model: Tax-Exempt Memory Hole
The Massachusetts Model: Partnering With Wall Street
Looks like all those execs are drawing down some premium pocket change.
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Strange how the Globe forgot its spotlight, huh?
But back to the health of the Baker campaign:
"Baker takes time out to show a softer side; Seeks to improve likability rating with women" by Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | October 1, 2010
Republican Charles D. Baker, hoping to appeal to women voters — who polls suggest prefer his rival, Governor Deval Patrick — showed a very different side of himself yesterday at a Women for Baker event run in town meeting style.
Surrounded by 100 women supporters, plus his wife and several women friends, he was less the hard-charging budget hawk fed up with the direction of the state and more the doting dad, husband, and longtime Big Brother who loves mac-and-cheese.
The unusual event was a concerted effort by Baker to show a warmer side of his personality, as polls suggest that his angry tone on the trail has hurt his likability among some voters....
We are NOT ELECTING a BFF, Globe!!
Also see: Globe's Governor's Race: Baker Rising as Patrick Falls
Baker is hoping to close a gender gap in the race, which is one of the reasons Patrick, despite his low approval ratings, continues to cling to a minuscule lead in recent polls.
Can I take this minute to tell you how sick I am of being divided by the agenda-pushing papers on race, gender, religion, or whatever?
Even though the race is nearly a dead heat among men, women prefer Patrick to Baker by double digits, 43 percent to 31 percent, according to a Sept. 21 Suffolk University/7News poll.
Yeah, that was kind off a fringe poll compared with most others.
A Globe poll on Sunday showed Patrick leading Baker among women by a narrower margin, 36 percent to 32 percent.
The Globe poll also suggested that Baker is seen as less likable than Patrick. Not even a majority of Baker’s own supporters, just 44 percent, identified him as the most likable candidate, compared with 71 percent of Patrick’s supporters who identified the governor as the most likable. Among all likely voters, Patrick was by far the most likable....
Except the electorate is angry and not in a very likable mood.
Btw, it might be helpful to point out that this is the same newspaper that misread the mood of the state and predicted a double-digit victory for Coakley over Senator Brown.
A Rasmussen Reports survey released yesterday showed Patrick leading among all voters, with support from 47 percent of respondents, compared with 42 percent for Baker and 6 percent for Cahill....
I'm sorry, Massachusetts, but if you return Deval the disaster and one-party fascism for another term you get what you deserve.
In an interview, Baker said he believes he will pick up more support from women as they get to know him better.
Carol Swydan, a supporter from Shrewsbury, heartily agreed. “In the end you’ll see,’’ she said. “They are going to love him.’’
Well, I'm not going that far, either; I just want a competent governor that does a decent job running this state and checks the lootislature.
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Did you have to pay for the rest, readers?
