I hope you have insurance, although laughter really is the best medicine.
"House targets health spending" May 04, 2012|Liz Kowalczyk
Massachusetts
House leaders released a major proposal to curb health care costs
Friday, calling for new limits on the fees charged by hospitals and
doctors and for creation of an independent agency to monitor medical
spending. The lawmakers project their plan would save families an
average of $2,000 annually on health insurance premiums.
The
long-awaited bill would require the health care industry to cut the
growth in spending in about half by 2016, so that it is below the growth
of the overall Massachusetts economy.
Providers
that charge prices deemed excessive and that they cannot prove are
linked to above-average quality would pay a tax, similar to the luxury
tax Major League Baseball imposes on the big-spending New York Yankees
and Boston Red Sox. That money also would be redistributed to
financially-shaky hospitals.
Another key provision would charge
hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, and insurers a one-time tax
totaling about $200 million to help struggling hospitals that treat many
poor patients.
Lawmakers have been working on proposals to
control health care spending for two years, and the House legislation
filed Friday kicks off debate that is likely to last through July.
I won't have to go back to the BG doctor until then.
Senate leaders said they will file their own bill next week, indicating
they disagree at least in part with the House’s approach.
The
Massachusetts Hospital Association and the doctors’ lobby, powerful
industry groups, suggested Friday that they, too, will fight portions of
the House bill, arguing that its spending targets are too severe.
Hospitals,
doctors, insurers, and government leaders have been arguing for months
about whether the industry can control costs on its own or whether the
government has to intervene with some type of price controls. The
industry points to a recent moderation of price increases to argue
regulation is not needed, but consumer advocates attribute the slowdown
to the recession and pressure from the Patrick administration.
They could have been doing that before, and only started to when the pressure came to bear.
The
cost-control battle is the second act in the state’s effort to revamp
health care, and once again it is in the national spotlight as one of
the first states to attempt to restrain the expensive and
often-disorganized health care system.
All we wanted was a good, decent, single-payer system like examples provided in Sicko. Instead we got mandated a crappy corporate health law.
President Obama’s health
care law is modeled on one passed in Massachusetts in 2006 that expanded
health insurance coverage to nearly all residents in part by mandating
the purchase of insurance by anyone who can afford it. Massachusetts
leaders have long said that the insurance requirement was just the first
step and must be followed by cost controls.
See: Memory Hole: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
Did you forget?
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo said he tried “to find that balance’’
between the providers’ concerns and competing interests of employers and
consumers who cannot afford to keep up with health care costs that are
growing 6 percent to 8 percent a year....
Lynn Nicholas, president of the state hospital group, said, “To expect
the health care industry to perform at less than the economy overall is
unreasonable and will impinge on our ability to deliver care at the
level people expect. . . . That may damage the economy more than it
helps it, and, because of that, jobs may be lost.’’
There's the threat.
****************************
The bill also encourages providers to form so-called accountable
care organizations to care for patients in a more efficient coordinated
fashion, and pushes insurers to shift toward global payments, which pay
providers a lump sum to care for a group of patients, and away from
paying separate fees for every service.
Ah, the return of the hated HMOs, and rationing.
Much of the authority in
the new system proposed by the House would lie with the independent
agency, which would oversee compliance with spending goals, in part by
investigating providers and insurers whose prices exceed the limit and,
in some cases, requiring them to renegotiate fee increases.
Another layer of bureaucracy? The anthropologists say that is how societies are destroyed.
The legislation also takes aim at the extreme variation in prices that
hospitals charge insurers and government payers for similar services.
Investigations by the Globe Spotlight Team and Attorney General Martha
Coakley’s office have documented that hospitals with market power -
because of their reputation, location or specialized services - often
charge much more than other hospitals for services of similar quality....
We call it PRICE GOUGING!
Related: The Massachusetts Model: The AG's Amnesia
She didn't name names?
--more--"
Need a second opinion?
"2 Mass. plans vie for savings on health care" May 09, 2012|Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff
Massachusetts
Senate leaders’ plan to tame medical costs will call for
less-aggressive spending limits on the health care industry than the
House proposed last week, and fewer controls on high-priced hospitals
and doctors, according to a summary provided to the Globe.
The
Senate legislation is to be unveiled Wednesday, and in interviews
yesterday, both House and Senate leaders stressed the similarities in
their approaches.
But their plans contain key differences -
particularly over how much the health care industry can be relied on to
control costs on its own - that will be debated intensely in the coming
months. The Senate bill appears to allow doctors and hospitals more
leeway to find their own solutions, while the House appears to want more
oversight....
--more--"
Find their own solutions?
"Seven Massachusetts hospitals plan to offer patients harmed by medical
errors a prompt apology and financial settlements before they resort to
lawsuits, part of a major new initiative to improve the state’s
cumbersome medical malpractice system."
And get out of paying even more in a lawsuit.
"Hospitals mobilize on health cost bill" May 20, 2012|Liz Kowalczyk
Last
Monday, leaders from Partners HealthCare System Inc. gathered in the
dark-paneled office of Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo to lay
out their objections to his expansive 278-page plan to tame health care
costs.
I wonder if he made 'em wait outside and stew for 45 minutes? I'll bet they got more than 90 seconds, too!!!
The House proposal, unveiled 10 days earlier, called in
part for closer oversight of the prices and operations of hospitals and
their physicians groups, especially more costly ones like those owned by
Partners, and influential board chairman Jack Connors requested a
meeting.
“This is overreaching,’’ he cautioned the speaker and
other key House members. Too much regulation, he warned, referring to
the health care industry, could hurt the “golden goose.’’
Related: The Billion-Dollar President
The
Harvard-affiliated Partners has led the lobbying charge among hospitals
deeply worried that the House legislation and other bills - intended to
bring relief to consumers and employers struggling to pay high health
insurance premiums - could harm their ability to provide high-quality
care and cost jobs.
Last year, Massachusetts hospitals and medical organizations spent $9
million on lobbying politicians, more than any other sector, reflecting
both the industry’s size and also the high stakes.
That's a good use of the health care buck, 'eh? Not like they would want to, like, provide health care with it or anything.
Nearly $1 million of
that total was spent by Partners, the largest provider network in the
state with nine hospitals and 6,000 doctors. Steward Health Care System,
Partners’ largest competitor, spent $362,000.
See: Catholic Caritas Makes Deal With the Devil
I was wondering who was running private equity and their apostates.
Since 2009, when
the debate over health care costs started to heat up, Partners’ lobbying
spending has almost tripled, which the nonprofit says is mostly due to a
new law that expanded the definition of lobbying....
Legislators say that hospitals have been heard....
The
Senate plan is also somewhat friendlier to hospitals, allowing the
industry more freedom to reduce costs on its own - which hospitals claim
they are already doing by better coordinating patient care and reducing
infections and readmissions.
The
House wants to impose a luxury tax on providers that charge prices they
cannot prove are linked to above-average quality and redistribute that
money to financially shaky hospitals.
Since the Senate approved
its bill on Thursday and the House is unlikely to debate its proposal
until later this month, hospitals are now focused on working with House
leaders to soften specific measures before legislators and the
administration attempt to hammer out a compromise law before July 31.
During
the meeting last Monday in DeLeo’s office, Connors, Partners president
Gary Gottlieb, and Partners lobbyists John Sasso and Joseph Alviani told
the speaker and three House leaders that they were concerned that a new
independent agency charged with enforcing the limits on spending growth
would have too much power.
They also objected to a provision in
the House bill that could force hospitals in large networks such as
Partners to negotiate contracts with insurers separately, saying it
would reduce their leverage.
Partners would not comment on details
of the meeting, but spokesman Rich Copp said in a written statement
that the organization’s message is that “hospitals, government,
insurers, and businesses must work together to build upon the many
innovations already underway in the marketplace to address the issue of
affordability. We must be careful not to overreach and stifle the
innovation by over regulating.’’
And in goes the thermometer and I don't mean the mouth.
--more--"
Related: Patrick pushes health care cost controls
Mass. health centers awarded $34m
Mass. health insurers' earnings fall off
Partners’ second-quarter earnings fall on one-time charge
Partners announces scholarship initiative
Yes, corporations are so good to us when they aren't ripping us off.
Also see: Hospitals still lag in staff flu shots
They know what we know: there is poison in those vials.
State allows pharmacies to offer more vaccines
Gotta keep those pharmaceutical industry profits and campaign kickbacks coming.
Sorry I didn't take a shot for you, readers.
