Tuesday, August 7, 2012

MassCare Floundering

It's lobster season (or so I've been told), and the water's boiling on the progenitor of ObamaCare::

"Sure enough, 79% of the newly insured are on public programs. Health costs—Medicaid, RomneyCare’s subsidies, public-employee compensation—will consume some 54% of the state budget in 2012, up from about 24% in 2001"

Oy, that's a 225% increase in the overall "curve." Adding insult to injury, health care spending by the state's government has increased almost 60%. And to top it all off, the Bay State "spends more per capita on health care than any other state ... Costs are 27% higher than the U.S. average"

So, more money, but better care, right?

Right??

Maybe not:

"Under [a recently passed “cost containment” bill], all Massachusetts doctors, hospitals and other providers must register with a new state bureaucracy as a condition of licensure—that is, permission to practice. They’ll be required to track and report their financial performance, price and cost trends, state-sanctioned quality measures, market share and other metrics."

More red-tape means less time for health care delivery.  But wait, it gets even more Orwellian:

"No registered provider is allowed to make “any material change to its operations or governance structure ... without the commission’s approval ... As the commission polices the market, it can decide to supervise the behavior of ... doctors and hospitals that are spending too much on patient care."

Well, I'm sure that will gladden the hearts of actual health care providers. Because that kind of thinking worked out so well in the 70's.

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