The Massachusetts Legislature will soon pass a bill promising to control health costs. But a bill that can pass will be too weak to work. Political pressure to craft a law with real teeth is still lacking.
The world’s other rich democracies surpass the U.S. in containing health costs while covering all people and enjoying superior longevity. Despite big differences in how they raise money, cover people, and pay hospitals and doctors, they share six key approaches to containing costs.
Comments
I agree the legislative reforms are doomed to failure because price fixing always fails. But where do these academics get the $16 billion number for health care waste in Massachusetts? We 'only' spend around $40 billion a year on healthcare (not counting nursing homes) in Massachusetts. Is 40% of that $40 bilion waste? If ACOs reduce waste, here's some good news: 33% of us are already in them. So the 40% waste is really 50% or higher waste among the rest of you. But it can't be among the 20% of us on Medicare. Because our costs are fixed by the federal government. So I guess the waste is that those of you not on Medicare and not in ACOs are spending 65% more than you should Please report to the MASH tend for your next physical.
The waste is visible in every doctor's office, hospital billing office, ancillary services business offices. Because of complex reimbursement rules and actual billing this takes a multifold and excessive number of administrative personel to carry this out. Also to set these rules for payment in place teams of negotiators meet individually and institution by institution to settle what will be paid. Country wide this would represent a 400 billion dollar savings if some more uniform pricing and budgeting with more global negotiations were put in place. Based on this the savings mentioned in the article are not off the wall. In Canada their accounts receivable and payable department is the size of Massachusetts BC/BS for the entire country!
Can you please name the other rich democracies who you refer to in your article? How can we verify or emulate their systems if you do not provide us with the names of these countries? Thank you.
the state version of ACO, the ICO, desperately needs publicity for comment. Autoenrolling patients who have no idea how their services are being manipulated is just one. the rush to collect unsuspecting patients who have to unenroll in a process that could take a month does not promote better patient care.