An article January 23 in the Boston Globe is part of the Massachusetts government/healthcare-insurer complex's ongoing propaganda campaign in favor of a (another try at) global payment system (capitation)/accountable care organization (HMO) method of paying doctors and hospitals for healthcare delivery. The article is an interview of the Massachusetts Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BC/BS) CEO Andrew Dreyfus. According to the Globe, Dreyfus is a former state political appointee and lobbyist for the state hospital association.
The jist of the article is that Dreyfus -- the biggest payer in the state -- is just all torn up about the battle between employers and providers, who are at each others' throats over rising healthcare delivery costs. He describes his having to ask a company CEO for a 11% raise in premiums, which the CEO wouldn't accept. According to the article:
"Ultimately, the contract was restructured to boost copays and include other adjustments, and Blue Cross limited the increase to less than 10 percent. But Dreyfus said he knows controlling costs will be difficult. On the same day he visited the (CEO), a hospital executive told Dreyfus his medical center would have to raise its prices by 4 to 5 percent.
"“It just so struck me that I’m hearing from the customer that a 10 to 11 percent premium increase is absolutely unacceptable in this economy,’’ Dreyfus said. “And then within an hour or two I’m hearing from the hospital that they required a price increase.’’ "
Notice that the way the CEO's problem was solved was to increase your "co-pays and include other adjustments." What you wouldn't notice in the article except in the most peripheral way was that neither Dreyfus nor any of the other execs and lobbyists mentioned ever said a word about the patient, you and me.
Unintentionally, the BC/BS CEO has identified what is wrong with the decades-long state goverment interference in the Massachusetts health care delivery system, conducted with the full participation of the payers and hospitals. They don't think about the consumer.
I have a tendency to blame Mitt Romney for the failure of healthcare reform in Massachusetts but I'm not looking at the complete history. In reality we need to go back to 1930 and start over. Get all these middlemen out between us and our doctors.
-- Dennis Byron