Related: The Massachusetts Model: Municipal Health Mess
The Massachusetts Model: Mayors Make Lawmakers Mad
Oh, no, they only meant for you, taxpayers, not for their taxpayer-funded plans.
"Call to cap medical payments is likely; Quick action vital, Senate leader says; Costs in Mass. rose 15% in two years" by Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff | March 17, 2010
Massachusetts Senate leaders indicated yesterday that they will push forward significant measures this year to control soaring health care costs in the state that probably will include caps on payments to hospitals and doctors.
So when are you going to cap tax breaks to Hollywood?
Related: The Massachusetts Model: Doctors' Diet
Yeah, you will be on one to, readers.
See who the fat f*** "public servants" are serving?
Legislators made their comments during the first day of high-profile state hearings being held to investigate why health care costs are rising so rapidly.
Senate President Therese Murray, Democrat of Plymouth, told the audience at the University of Massachusetts Boston that state officials “must act quickly and decisively once the hearings are over’’ and that “failure to act is not an option.’’
Translation: Things will get worse.
Last year, a state commission proposed radical changes to the way providers are paid, with the goal of slowing the rise in the use of medical services. It urged scrapping the current fee-for-service system and paying providers a per-patient annual fee, called a global payment, to cover all of a patient’s medical care.
Yeah, and if SOMETHING BAD and UNEXPECTED HAPPENS to you?
S*** out of luck, huh?
The state secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, and other Patrick administration officials have completed a detailed plan for adopting global payments and are expected to brief legislators on it by next week, said Senator Richard Moore, an Uxbridge Democrat who is Senate chairman of the health care financing committee.
Oh, so it has ALREADY BEEN DECIDED!
Yup, they are AFRAID to take on the PRICE-GOUGING RATES of the insurance companies, but will freely cut your care, Bay-Staters!
But given that global payments could take five years or more to implement, he said “a quick fix’’ is needed “to stop the bleeding,’’ particularly for owners of small businesses, who are struggling to pay soaring health insurance premiums....
So that's what the vampires of health insurance are sucking up.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, Democrat of Revere, did not attend the first day of hearings, and it’s unclear whether the House’s leaders are as ready to advance cost-control measures as Senate leaders are....
Oh, yeah, pass me that salt shaker.
The Division of Health Care Finance and Policy and a separate yearlong investigation by Attorney General Martha Coakley’s staff found that hospitals and doctors who set higher prices played a significant role in pushing up costs. Both concluded that Massachusetts insurance companies pay some providers who have market clout dramatically more money than others, for essentially the same care.
Yesterday, Coakley testified she found no evidence the higher pay was a reward for better quality work or for treating sicker patients. In January, her preliminary findings did not name providers. But her final report, released yesterday, identified the highest-paid hospitals and physicians’ groups....
Three Partners HealthCare hospitals — Nantucket Cottage, Massachusetts General, and Brigham and Women’s — were the best-paid hospitals in the insurer’s network, followed by Children’s Hospital Boston and Berkshire Medical Center. Tufts Health Plan paid Children’s Hospital the highest prices in 2008, followed by North Adams Regional Hospital, Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Berkshire Medical Center, Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington, Cape Cod Hospital, Mass. General, and the Brigham.
Coakley found some hospitals have leverage because of their size or reputation, while others have geographical dominance.
Hospitals and insurers will testify tomorrow.
A report released this week by Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar, directors of the Health Reform Program at the Boston University School of Public Health, concluded per-person spending on hospital care in Massachusetts was $3,015 in 2007 — 54 percent above the US average.
Hey, health insurance companies need to stay phat in the profits!
The reasons include heavy reliance on academic medical centers....
Oh, is that the latest excuse they are offering up?
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