Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Mass. Medical Model Shines, Pt.8 – Keeping the peace while tending the garden.

Previous…

If that’s not enough, there was a disparaging letter issued this year, signed by more than 250 Massachusetts doctors. Concerning new directions the health insurance model is taking, the medical care side of the equation is exhibiting exasperation about where these public funds are going. The letter is to the effect that the funds to care for the poor, which once "flowed directly to hospitals and clinics”, are now being routed through health insurance companies instead. This is adding much higher administrative costs to the system. This group admonishes that: "While patients, the state and safety net providers struggle, private [health] insurers have prospered under the new law, and the costs of bureaucracy have risen." This letter is being promoted by the Physicians for a National Health Program. They are an advocacy group backing “a single-payer government-run health-care system that would eliminate private insurance,” states Jason Szep in a Reuter’s article and posted on their http://in.reuters.com/article/health/ website.

In reality though, this reaction may simply be a backlash of the next major objective that Mitt. Romney strongly advised for the health insurance/care model. As he explained, burgeoning costs were expected and excused at the program’s beginning with the commitment that these would fall away as the program matured. In a major move toward later-phased cost containment he reminded the current administrators of the original commitments that made the health insurance/care plan viable in the first place. His admonishments were:

• Direct payments must be phased out: Direct payments to hospitals are made for those who mostly provide care for the subsidized health insurance, low-income sector. This is already scheduled by the legislature to be phased out in 2009 with one last payment of $160 million. The legislature needs adamantly stay with that agreement.
• Monitor enforcement with strict adherence: Clamp down of hospitals that still offer free care. The care paid for must come from patients who are paying for health insurance coverage, whether subsidized or not. These requirements must be ‘tightened up’. No more “large opaque window” payments to these hospitals for those without health insurance. Enforce this strictly.

·  For a better in-depth look at this this situation, please Refer to the article series entitled “Mass. Health, A Creator Explains “.

Continued…