SCREW Mitt!
Let’s hope they take each other out like last time....but this time hopefully a conservative will benefit from these clowns going after each other.
At least he owns up to what he belives. That won't get him my support, but at least he admits it.
Myth got ‘everyone covered’ alright. The question is....covered in what?
Mitt just sank his own 2012 ship
Mitt just sank his own 2012 ship
What we need is a few people from Mass, to tell us first hand how it
has effected their lives.
Any takers here?
The hospital, Boston Medical Center, faces a $38 million deficit for the fiscal year ending in September, its first loss in five years. The suit says the hospital will lose more than $100 million next year because the state has lowered Medicaid reimbursement rates and stopped paying Boston Medical “reasonable costs” for treating other poor patients.
“We filed this suit more in sorrow than in anger,” said Elaine Ullian, the hospital’s chief executive. “We believe in health care reform to the bottom of our toes, but it was never, ever supposed to be financed on the backs of the poor, and that’s what has happened in Massachusetts.”
The central charge in the suit is that the state has siphoned money away from Boston Medical to help pay the considerable cost of insuring all but a small percentage of residents. Three years after the law’s passage, Massachusetts has the country’s lowest percentage of uninsured residents: 2.6 percent, compared with a national average of 15 percent.
Low-income residents, who have benefited most from expanded access to health care, receive state-subsidized insurance, one of the most expensive aspects of the state plan. But rapidly rising costs and the battered economy have caused more problems than the state and supporters of the 2006 law — including Boston Medical — anticipated.
According to the suit, Massachusetts is now reimbursing Boston Medical only 64 cents for every dollar it spends treating the poor. About 10 percent of the hospital’s patients are uninsured — down from about 20 percent before the law’s passage in 2006. But many more are on Medicaid or Commonwealth Care, the state-subsidized insurance program for low-income residents.
One of the state’s reimbursement rates to Boston Medical, dropped from $12, 476 in 2008 to $9,323 by 2009, the suit says.
Wendy E. Parmet, a professor at the Northeastern University School of Law, said the suit was “a step in a wider minuet” as state lawmakers, health care providers and other stakeholders try to figure out how to make the new law work in the long term.
“I think it’s going to be a very hard lawsuit for them to prevail on,” Professor Parmet said of the hospital. “I think they’re trying to bring another weapon into what is essentially, in many ways, a political and economic battle going on in the state about how to pay for health care, and making sure their voice gets heard.”
The suit comes as Congress looks to Massachusetts as a potential model for overhauling the nation’s health care system. Even before the suit, the state’s fiscal crisis had cast doubts on the law’s sustainability.
To help close a growing deficit, the Democratic-controlled Legislature eliminated coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants in the new state budget. Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, is seeking to restore about half of the $130 million cut, but lawmakers have expressed reluctance, saying that doing so would require cuts to other important programs.
State officials expressed surprise at the lawsuit, saying that Boston Medical received $1.5 billion in state funds in the past year and should not be seeking more in the midst of a fiscal crisis.
“At a time when everyone funded and served by state government is being asked to do more with less, B.M.C. has been treated no differently,” said Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, the state secretary of health and human services, in a prepared statement. “We are confident that the administration’s actions in this area comply with all applicable law and will be upheld.”
State officials have suggested that Boston Medical could reduce costs by operating more efficiently. The state has also pointed out that the hospital has reserves of about $190 million, but Tom Traylor, the hospital’s vice president of federal and state programs, said the reserves could only sustain the hospital for about a year.
“The magnitude of the loss here can’t be solved on the program-cutting or expense-cutting side,” Mr. Traylor said. Professor Parmet said the hospital’s dissatisfaction with the new law should be a warning to Congress that “insurance alone doesn’t solve the problems” of the health care system. In fact, she said, it might exacerbate the financial problems of safety-net hospitals in the short term.
THANKS MITT!
RomneyCare is all anyone really has to know about Romney but it ain’t the only thing.
You just HAVE to let him be President. He has wanted to be President since he was three years old. It's the only thing he's ever really wanted.
**RINO ROBOT ALERT**
lie
Willard needs to take a flying leap to Kolob in his cork submarine
Is Mitt subject to Romney care or does he get the medical treatment that the most politicians have?
Looks as though Mitt’s paving the way for Christie to jump into the fray.
Yesterday’s legal action sets the stage for a showdown between state regulators and the health insurance industry.
Governor Deval Patrick has made reining in runaway health care costs a centerpiece of his administration and his campaign for reelection — contending they are stifling the capacity of small businesses to create jobs. At the same time, health insurers argue that government is forcing them to sell policies at a loss that is unsustainable as the costs of medical services climb.
Filing the suit were Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest health insurer, and the five commercial members of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Tufts Health Plan, Fallon Community Health Plan, Health New England, and Neighborhood Health Plan. All are nonprofit carriers.
The insurance carriers will go before a judge on Thursday in Massachusetts Superior Court in Boston asking for a preliminary injunction against Insurance Commissioner Joseph G. Murphy’s decision to reject 235 of 274 premium hikes proposed by the insurers.
Those rulings, which marked the first time the state has used its authority to deny health plan increases, were delivered last Thursday. They followed emergency regulations Patrick set requiring that rates be submitted 30 days in advance for review by regulators.
The rulings mean that health insurance rates established in 2009 for small businesses and individuals will remain in effect — rates the insurers say were not even sufficient to cover last year’s costs.
“What the commissioner did, we think, is going to create tremendous disruption in the marketplace,’’ said Dean Richlin, a partner at Boston law firm Foley Hoag who represents insurers.
Health insurance leaders are also contending the health premium rate rejections are a distraction from what they see as the real problem: steadily rising medical costs, particularly from health care providers and hospital groups that use their market clout to negotiate long-term contracts on favorable terms with the insurance carriers.
“We’re particularly distressed that this does nothing to contain the underlying hospital costs and doctor costs and drug costs,’’ said James Roosevelt Jr., the chief executive of Tufts Health Plan.
Barbara Anthony, undersecretary of the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, which oversees insurance regulators, defended Murphy’s rulings and said the insurers’ lawsuit lacked merit. She said state law gives the commissioner the right to reject rates that are excessive compared to the benefits provided.Continued...
“He’s on firm legal ground in disapproving the rates,’’ Anthony said.
The insurers’ complaint alleges that the state Division of Insurance acted illegally in three ways: by imposing a “rate cap’’ that is arbitrary and capricious; by attempting to peg rates to a measure — the medical consumer price index — that does not predict future costs; and by violating a requirement to enable insurers to charge adequate rates based on their projected costs in covering medical care.
“As a result of the commissioner’s action,’’ Richlin said, “the insurance companies will experience substantial and, in some cases, staggering losses. We estimate the collective loss among all of the insurers will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars just for 2010. There are some number that will face near-term solvency problems.’’
Three of the largest state health insurers — Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Boston, Tufts Health Plan of Watertown, and Fallon Community Health Plan of Worcester — posted operating losses for 2009.
Anthony said the insurers’ contentions were “specious,’’ and reflected how out of touch the industry is with the pressures ordinary citizens and businessmen face as Massachusetts emerges from recession.
“This is an outrageous response from an industry that claimed to be concerned about alleviating these escalating health care costs,’’ Anthony said. “I think it’s clear that the insurance companies are in love with the status quo where they get to continue to charge double-digit premium increases on small businesses and families.’’
In their request for an injunction, the health insurers are asking the Superior Court judge to let their proposed rate increases take effect or, barring that, require that the increases be collected from customers and put in escrow until the lawsuit is resolved. That way small businesses and individuals wouldn’t be faced with paying large lump sums later in the year if the judge eventually ruled in favor of the insurers.
While the suit predicts the plaintiffs “will suffer collective losses that threaten to amount to well over $100 million,’’ the actual impact will depend on a number of factors such as the strength of their reserves and their ability to negotiate more advantageous contracts with hospitals and physicians groups. Some insurers already have been rebuffed in recent efforts to renegotiate long-term contracts with such health care providers, according to insurance industry leaders.
“Insurance plans have multiyear contracts with providers,’’ said Lora Pellegrini, the chief executive of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, a trade group for insurers. “What incentive is there for providers to renegotiate contracts?’’
Catherine Bromberg, a Massachusetts Hospital Association spokeswoman, said she was unaware of discussions between insurers and individual hospitals about reopening contracts.
Insurers are required to maintain financial reserves to cushion them against losses, but such reserves won’t protect them indefinitely if they are not permitted to cover their costs, the carriers said.
Jon B. Hurst, the president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, which represents 3,100 retailers and restaurants, said his members are hoping the judge rejects the insurers’ arguments so they can be spared further rate increases they can ill afford. “Just as they’re fighting this in the courts, they’re fighting our efforts to get group discounts for small businesses,’’ Hurst said.
Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.
IT SEEMS MITTS GREAT HEALTHCARE PLAN/NIGHTMARE WANTED THE INSURERS,DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS TO EAT THE COST AND WORK FOR FREE OR JUST TAKE WHAT THE STATE WANTED TO PAY.THIS IS THE MA.HEALTHCARE NIGHTMARE COMING TO A TOWN NEAR YOU WITH OBAMACARE.