Aug ‘12
23
ROMNEYCARE AND OBAMACARE
Each tapped into the genius of partnering willing health care leadership with helpful and understanding public coverage policy at the state and community level. Of course it takes an act of the Massachusetts Legislature or of the Congress of the United States. But it’s not “government- run health care” or a “socialist effort to put third parties between you and your doctor.” That crap was invented by the American Medical Association back in the 1930s and adapted by neo-cons like Palin and Bachmann and eight solo practice docs turned congressmen to fight off creative and innovative health professional leadership who saw change led by health care leaders acting in concert, not by solo practice doctors protecting themselves from the inevitability of change for the better.
With Romney running for president to repeal both Romneycare and Obamacare, the Massachusetts legislature has just done what the corporate health care leaders of Boston especially promised to do but didn’t, collaborate to reduce the growth in health care costs brought on by corporate HOSPITAL competition for clinical, education, research and reputation business in the northeast. The new law does what Obamacare does to match efforts previously underway in many other parts of the country.
It moves third-party payment away from fee-for-service to incentive payments for quality, safety, cost-reduction, and value-for-money and consumer service goals. The state did what providers could not. Set a “global cap” on health costs to bring per capita spending in line with national spending averages. It ties state health spending to the “gross state product” (GSP) during 2013-17, then GSP-1/2 point for 2018-22, from a recent average of 2x GSP. Paul Ginsburg at the non-partisan Center for Studying Health System Change says “this seems to be the most significant attempt at cost containment that any state has mounted.”
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