Health Care Mismanagement in Massachusetts
TAGS: Heritage Foundation, John Kerry.
The Heritage Foundation recently uncovered Health Care Reform mismanagement in Massachusetts, and they are blogging about it.
First Bear Stearns, then Fannie and Freddie … and now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?
Last week Massachusetts received another short-term extension of its Medicaid waiver—which in part funds the state’s health care reform — until next Monday (July 28th) because the terms and conditions of its renewal are still pending. State and federal officials have mostly been silent on the details of their talks but there is no apparent sign that negotiations will come to an end by the next deadline.
In a recent memo I authored with my colleague Ed Haislmaier, we explained that the last renewal of this long-standing waiver in 2005 was the catalyst for Massachusetts adopting a package of major health reform measures in 2006. One key element was an agreement between state and federal officials that Massachusetts would begin redirecting federal Medicaid funds away from “safety net” institutions and to individuals instead.
The basic idea was that instead of giving heath care providers various “supplemental” Medicaid payments to subsidize them for treating the uninsured, the state would instead use those same dollars to — drum roll, please — subsidize buying health insurance for low-income uninsured adults.
According to the author of the blog entry, this financing shift can work if and only if state and federal officials keep the agreements they made in 2005…agreements that Senator John Kerry would like to ignore. Senator Kerry wants to see hospitals subsidized directly, and criticizes the Heritage Foundation for thinking that giving more money to Boston Medical Center and Cambridge Health Alliance is absurd–of course, forgetting the fact that these institutions already receive money.
The Heritage Foundation does not believe that you fix a budget problem created by double paying some of it health providers with a federal bailout. Why does John Kerry think so?
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Aaron Margolis is a life long resident of the Bay State, and works at an architectural firm north of Boston. Aaron has a Master of Architecture Degree from Boston Architectural College and is currently in the process of becoming of a Registered Architect.
[...] HealthCare Mismanagement in Massachusetts [...]
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptLast week Massachusetts received another short-term extension of its Medicaid waiver—which in part funds the state’s health care reform — until next Monday (July 28th) because the terms and conditions of its renewal are still pending. … [...]
Health Care Mismanagement in Massachusetts…
Last week Massachusetts received another short-term extension of its Medicaid waiver—which in part funds the state’s health care reform — until next Monday (July 28th) because the terms and conditions of its renewal are still pending. ……
Hello Boston Globe etc. Please tell us all how much does MASSHEALTH cost”? (It’s the simplwe questions that get them!)