Bad News on RomneyCare
This is from the latest official report:
- Private payer health spending in Massachusetts outpaced national health care spending and spending by Medicare and MassHealth (Medicaid).
- Faster growth in spending by private payers was largely the result of increasing prices.
- Growth in Medicare and MassHealth spending predominately reflected increases in service use, rather than growth in prices.
- Conclusion: Health care spending continues to outpace inflation, wage growth, and other measures of economic growth in Massachusetts.
HT to Kevin Outterson.
Good to see the laws of economics still work in Massachusetts.
Not so good for Romney’s presidential aspirations, though…
Mosts new about the Massachusetts health reform seems to be bad news.
If Massachusetts is the model for health reform, maybe we should wait until they ascertain it will perform as planned before foisting it on the rest of us!
The increase in prices paid by private insurers suggests cost shifting, as providers try to charge more to those who can pay more, to make up for those payers who won’t pay the full cost — i.e., the federal government (Medicare) and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (MassHealth).
There is no cost control under Romney Care.
Mr. Goodman, Following your post “Krugman Gets It Wrong Again”, the analysis on Incidental Economist seems to demand a response from you. If you’re correct, some clarification is required. If you’re not correct, the honorable thing would be to acknowledge the error.
Your responses to comments show that you read and follow up on comments. You have so far failed to support your assertions or to acknowledge your error. Please address the issue in a thoughtful way.
So if we want to control costs, this shows that competition among private insurance plans is not going to do it.
Nationally private plans cost growth was less than Medicare and Medicaid, because lacking universal health insurance, people are increasingly uninsured. In Massachusetts a tiny fraction of the population is uninsured.
This data, and other world data shows that single payer is the best way to control costs, and insure everyone. This is of course contrary to the free market ideology pushed by Mr Goodman, but ideology seems to trump data for the free market crowd.
Joe Barnett says:
June 20, 2011 at 3:35 pm
“The increase in prices paid by private insurers suggests cost shifting, as providers try to charge more to those who can pay more, to make up for those payers who won’t pay the full cost — i.e., the federal government (Medicare) and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (MassHealth).”
This used to be true but is not currently an important factor. A small fraction, about 20% of the compensation difference between public and private insurance currently gets cost shifted. Most of the price increases are made possible because of the high reputation for quality by certain hospitals. This would appear to be the case in Massachusetts, which has a lot of medical school affiliated hospitals.