BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL
On health care, Legislature shouldn’t hurt its own reform
FEBRUARY 01, 2012
EVEN BEFORE this year’s grand debate about containing health care costs begins on Beacon Hill, a pointed disagreement has broken out among key players in the state health care arena.
The health plans fear that legislative meddling is opening holes in the very cost-controlling arrangements that a recent law required, while legislators contend they are simply looking out for individuals who might be hurt by policy changes.
There is nothing wrong with trying to minimize disruptions on patients from changes to their insurance plans, but the recent proposal to give certain patients the right to keep receiving treatment at higher-cost hospitals is too broadly written. Until it is clear just how many people would be exempted from policy changes, and how that might add to insurers’ costs, the Legislature should hold off, lest it undermine its own goal of making health care more affordable.
The year before last, the Legislature passed a law requiring insurers to offer limited networks, which restrict plan members to certain hospitals and doctors, and tiered networks, which charge plan members more for using more expensive providers. The moves provided lower-cost insurance options for families and businesses, albeit by limiting patients’ choices of doctors and hospitals. Over the past two years, average annual premium hikes have shrunk from a projected 16.3 percent to 2.3 percent.
But this year, at the behest of Representative Steven Walsh, House chairman of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, and other influential legislators, the Legislature passed a budget rider making exceptions for some members of such plans. Walsh says he’s concerned that patients who were undergoing treatment at Children’s Hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the Floating Hospital under the terms of their previous plans be able to continue their treatments there without bearing large cost increases. He contends that the budget language is crafted to apply to only a relatively small number of patients; he doesn’t, however, have a reliable estimate of just how many.
“Although the legislative intentions may well be good, this episode is a cautionary tale.”
The insurers, for their part, worry the language would allow a much larger number of patients with chronic conditions to sidestep plan features designed to rein in costs. They also worry that this action sets a bad precedent for future legislative interventions; already, lobbyists for major hospitals are seeking ways to keep their patients while still receiving higher reimbursements from insurers. It will likely now be left to the Patrick administration to work out a compromise.
Although the legislative intentions may well be good, this episode is a cautionary tale. Health care policy is so complex, and with so many moving parts, that it’s best to work out problems beforehand rather than fix them later. In this case, it’s easy to imagine a relatively small number of people with serious illnesses in the midst of rigorous treatment at Children’s, Dana-Farber, or Floating Hospital having a legitimate need to continue seeing the same doctors.
But until Walsh and other sponsors can say just how many beneficiaries there are, and be certain that other patients will not be able to use the law to get treatment at their institution of choice without having paid for that option, the Legislature should avoid meddling with a reform that truly has worked.
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