"People have been complaining about expensive medical care for years. Many have tried to solve it without much success. Our new legislation is a good start to the latest chapter in a very old story." Steven, you have to be delusional to think that the Legislature can produce positive outcomes by simply mandating a cap on the cost growth of an industry. They can no more get positive results from such foolishness than they can cap the winter temperatures or the height of the tides. You are talking about the same ship of fools whose capping of auto insurance rates gave Massachusetts the highest auto insurance rates in the US, and a disappearing number of insurers. As they say "those who dont learn from history, are destined to repeat it...". We know the Legislature are fools, what is your story?

No Steve a "fixed cost cap" was an idiotic idea. All of the supplies that go into healthcare are completely beyond the control of the legislature and providers. The cost of non-generic prescription drugs rose 21% last year. The cost of total joint implants more than doubled in 10 years. There are no controls on the prices of scanners, surgical instruments, and even electricity will continue to rise at rates higher than the cap. Indications are administrative costs have risen under RomneyCare. These costs are driven by the insurance industry and no controls were place on them. In fact is in the insurance industry's interest to continue to drive up theses costs as the less care given the better it is for the insurer. This will all come out of patient care. MA resident will face longer waits for less advanced care. "Those care organizations will deliver a better product for most of us over time. They will offer more financial incentives for providers to help us stay healthy, rather than simply treat us when we develop medical problems." – please Steve. We tried this in the 90s, it failed, and led to lower quality care. Just calling the ACOs instead of HMOs along with paying lip service to monitoring "quality" (which they have no way of really measuring) is not going to make them work better this time around.

"the most troubling medical customers of all: state officials who manage the Medicaid system in Massachusetts" Steve "state officials" can only pay what the Legislature appropriates. So will the General Court spend another $300 to $500MM in Mass Health to pay for the "actual cost of care", and if so how is one to determine it, based upon what the hospitals say it is? No state in the nation pays hospitals the costs of care, it is a long and well known fact that hospitals will treat medicaid as incremental business. The real question for Massachusetts is what are you doing with all of those hospitals and why on earth would you pass a bill that seeks to allow inefficient community hospitals, like everyone of Steward's to stay open?