"It's a shell game."The Patrick administration's recent rejection of 235 of 274 premium hikes proposed by a half-dozen health insurers is little more than a shell game, designed to make the governor look populist without really addressing the problem.
In rejecting the increases, the administration is trying to paint itself as the savior of small business by striking a blow against rapacious insurers.
On the surface, that is an easy sales job. Insurance Commissioner Joseph Murphy, the one who officially denied the proposed increases, said some of them ranged from 30 to 50 percent. That is indeed outrageous.
But what the administration doesn't mention is that three of the state's top insurers posted operating losses for 2009. Perhaps that is why it didn't add "windfall profits" to its list of accusations against insurers. Any business that is losing money and cannot raise prices will eventually go out of business.
At the heart of this shell game is deception: Price control is not cost control.
Simply by putting a cap on what insurers can charge does not change what they have to pay to providers. The administration is ignoring the other half of the equation — what doctors, hospitals, medical equipment and drug manufacturers charge for services and products. If those costs keep going up while the insurers can't charge any more, the system will collapse.
Is destroying the healthcare system the goal?Senate President Therese Murray is working that side of the street with her shell game. It has two parts.
Murray is "asking" health care providers to "donate" $100 million toward the cause of insurance rate relief for small businesses. So far, Partners HealthCare, the company behind such Boston icons as Mass. General and Brigham and Women's, has agreed to pay $40 million. Other big providers have been reluctant to join in.
This one-time transfer of cash doesn't solve the cost crisis in health care. It is little more than an accounting gimmick.
Let's see - rate relief for small business, and insurance companies are already being squeezed, can't make ends meet.
Why not just lower the prices providers are reimbursed and keep premiums lower? Eliminate the need for premium increases?
One alternative is known as a "global payments" system. Hospitals and other providers would be paid a fixed sum that would cover all that patient's health care needs for a year.
As with Patrick's rejection of insurer rate increases, this is little more than a diktat from on high limiting what providers may charge for their services. Again, it's price control, not cost control.
The reality our political leaders — in Washington as well as Boston — are tap dancing around is this: There is no cost-control in health care without denying patients some of the services they want or need.
I think some folks CHOOSE to use less healthcare. Some folks CHOOSE to be large consumers. Some folks CHOOSE to shop wisely, and other spend wildly.
more here -
http://www.salemnews.com/opinion/x1687718563/Politicians-play-shell-games-with-health-careWhy should anyone have to pay for someone else's excess?
It is mind bending that anyone would spend $25,000 on health insurance premiums. Where does the money go?
A basic plan set up by the Wisconsin legislature costs just $130 per month and is funded by participants - no state subsidy.
Why should anyone with basic coverage have to subsidize the Cadillac plan of another?
