Lowering the cost of health care was critical to maintaining Massachusetts’ economic recovery, Gov. Deval Patrick told lawmakers Monday, but his administration faced questions about how a sweeping payment reform plan would be implemented and whether it could successfully rein in soaring medical expenses, The Associated Press reports.
Most who spoke at a lengthy Statehouse hearing expressed support for the general concepts behind the governor’s bill, yet many also warned against taking a one-size-fits-all approach that might lead to unintended consequences such as denying quality care to some patients, stifling competition among providers or hurting the state’s smaller hospitals.
The testimony and questioning by members of the Legislature’s committee on health care financing and the powerful interests represented at the crowded hearing underscored the bill’s complexity and the problems Patrick will likely face in achieving his stated goal of passage by the fall.
The governor seemed to acknowledge as much, telling the panel that there were many who preferred to maintain the status quo.
Patrick said while the state’s 2006 first-in-the-nation universal health insurance law has been a “resounding access” in improving access to health insurance, it has not slowed what he called “unsustainable” increases in cost. Only by bringing those costs under control for families, small businesses and municipal governments could Massachusetts hope to build on its modest economic recovery, he said.
The bill, filed in February, seeks to move the state from the traditional “fee-for-service” approach to paying for health care, in which patients are simply billed for individual tests, procedures and appointments, and toward a system of so-called global payments, in which teams of providers — dubbed Accountable Care Organizations — collaborate on treatment and get rewarded for healthier patient outcomes.
