Senator Therese Murray’s Plan to Cut Health Care Costs
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In case you haven’t heard, today is a big day for the health care industry in Massachusetts. MA Senate President Therese Murray unveiled a much-anticipated plan to reduce the growth rate in health care costs earlier today. While some of what she’s proposing makes me nervous, I applaud her efforts, and look forward to the discussion her proposals will most certainly jump start. Senator Murray talked about some of these issues in a speech before the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce last year. Back then, she proposed public hearings to justify premium rate increases in excess of 7 percent in any given year. While the incrementalist in me says, “Yikes! This road is fraught with peril!” the realist in me says, “Anyone who thinks we can change the cost trajectory in health care without doing some difficult and disruptive things is dreaming.”
I think dealing with the cost crisis in health care needs to be Job #1 for all of us, and have written about controlling health care costs on more than one occasion. So - many thanks to Senator Murray for offering up a place to start. It’s a difficult ride, but it’s one we simply have to navigate. Gulp.
I work for Mayo Clinic, and we are hosting a national symposium on health care reform next week (Mar. 10-11) in Leesburg, Va. We’ve also set up a blog so people can watch the streaming video and contribute to the discussions. I hope you and your readers will join us.
http://healthpolicyblog.mayoclinic.org/
Your blog seems to have a predominantly Massachusetts focus, but I hope what we’re trying to accomplish at the national level will be of interest to those participating here. We hope you will engage in the live discussion.
very interesting
Along with the lead article which featured you in Managed Care Magazine, there is this about “medical tourism”..what do you make of it?
Until this year, the 27,000 people working for the Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain were on the hook for several thousand dollars in coinsurance if they needed a costly hip replacement. Yet the company was responsible for the lion’s share of the total bill — about $40,000.
But after he toured Singapore’s National University Hospital last year, Hannaford health benefits strategist Peter Hayes offered workers a deal that could be hard to pass up. Now, any one of them who needs it can get a hip replacement in that city-state, halfway around the world, and Hannaford will cover the entire $8,000 tab — including travel for the patient and spouse — to make it worthwhile for employees to choose the foreign adventure.
And there is more interest this year than last year. Of course, if another large influential employer working with United or Cigna or even Anthem says that it wants to do it, I’m sure that insurer will try to accommodate them. The national account business is so hard to get that they’re going to want to do this. And if a couple of employers that other employers know and trust are willing to give something a shot and it works out reasonably well, others will follow.”