The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review is up at Joe Paduda’s Managed Care Matters. Also, the second edition of the All About Taxes Blog Carnival is up at Tax Software Advice.
Sphere: Related ContentFriday, March 21, 2008
Growing pains for Massachusetts health plan: is it the plan or is it the costs?
According to the Globe, Massachusetts' subsidized health plan is struggling with higher than expected costs. In part, these increased costs have resulted from higher than expected enrollment. In part, the problem is due to overly optimistic cost projections by the state. In part, the problem is due to the steady march of ever-increasing health care costs.
To make up for some of the short fall, rates paid to insurers by the state will be raised by 10 percent for each person enrolled in the subsidized insurance program. Premiums for enrollees will also be raised. Copayments will go up. Nevertheless, these changes will not offset the expected shortfall. If the program is to function, something significant must be done. According to the Globe, Connector Board member Dolores Mitchell pointed out that the state has to focus on "wringing the excess costs . . . out of the system. Everybody wants an omelet, but nobody wants to break some eggs."
But what does this set of developments really mean? And exactly what eggs are Ms. Mitchell referring to?
The answers to these questions will not be found in the usual commentary about the Massachusetts plan. To some in the conservative-leaning, "get the government off my back" crowd that have pooh-poohed the Massachusetts plan from the start, these financial difficulties will seem like further vindication of their position: the government is ill-equipped to run a health care system and should not be in the business. To some in the more liberal-leaning, "health care/Medicare for everyone" crowd, this bit of news may seem like further evidence that the corrupt and evil forces at play in the system are simply too greedy and entrenched: if only the health insurance companies were cut out, health care would be affordable.
Both would be wrong.
Instead, sad truth is this: the difficulties experienced by the Massachusetts plan are, in most ways, no different from the health care financing problems experienced everywhere else in this country, everyday:
• employers struggle to afford health coverage to their employees
• uninsured individuals and families struggle to find and pay for affordable health insurance
• state governments struggle with their Medicaid budgets
• the federal government struggles with the costs of Mediare, Medicaid, Tricare, etc.
Why? We spend too much on health care. Period. If there were a simple way to game the current system so that costs could be held down, someone would have figured it out by now. The problem in Massachusetts is not the Massachusetts plan. Indeed, the structure of the Massachusetts plan is not the reason why its costs are difficult to manage. Instead, it is the system we, as a nation, have developed to finance health care. Convoluted payment systems, administrative complexities, overtreatment and waste, our obsession with increasingly expensive technologies and drugs--these are the the eggs that must be broken. Massachusetts' sin is not that it desires to cover more of its citizens, its sin is that it is trying to do so in a system that simply costs too much.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
RHI Health Blog of the Week
The RHI Health Blog of the Week is awarded to an exceptional health-related post appearing during the previous week (Wednesday to Tuesday).
This week's award goes to WSJ's Health Blog for its post "Our March Madness: The Drug Company CEO Bracket," which handicaps changes to the executives of Big Pharma and Big Biotech--complete with a printable NCAA-style bracket and a reader poll.
The award is presented every Wednesday. If you would like to nominate someone for the RHI Health Blog of the Week, please contact me.
Blogging is good for your health
According to researchers, two months of regular blogging made people felt they had better social support and friendship networks than those who didn't blog. See an article about the study here and one of the studies, from the February 2008 edition of the journal CyberPsychology and Behavior in PDF here.
I feel better already.
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