Health Care BS

Comments 14

1. Marc Brown wrote:

   Interesting - no really. For if you read the whole story, whichIi guess you rely on people not doing, we find that this is a publically owned organisation with a big proportion of mental health and addiction patients.

   We also find:

   ‘…Cambridge Health Alliance posted a surplus of $1.6 million in fiscal 2007 and is receiving “substantially” more public funding this year than last year.’

   ‘The Massachusetts Nurses Association … said the alliance’s financial problems are the result of poor management. “The introduction of the new health reform law was years in coming, and the changes in reimbursement rates and other factors have been well known and should have been anticipated,” the union said in a newsletter. “Our management built a budget that anticipated unachievable growth and set up this hospital for the failed situation it now faces.”‘

   Posted 18 Mar 2008 at 8:54 am ¶
2. drc wrote:

   $1.6 million isn’t enough to buy paper clips for a system that size.

   And “more public funding” is no help if it is accompanied by so many new uninsured patients that the hospital goes further in the hole.

   Posted 18 Mar 2008 at 9:19 am ¶
3. Marc Brown wrote:

   ‘And “more public funding” is no help if it is accompanied by so many new uninsured patients that the hospital goes further in the hole.’

   I agree - and as this, interesting as I said, is a public organisation then it needs to be properly funded by public taxation. But it appears there may also be an element of poor management too.

   Posted 18 Mar 2008 at 9:34 am ¶
4. Catron wrote:

   You’ve missed the point (again), Marc. Under “universal health care” there aren’t supposed to be any uninsured patients.

   Posted 18 Mar 2008 at 9:42 am ¶
5. Ed Sodaro MD wrote:

   The unanswered question is: “Who the heck are these uninsured?”

   I suspect that they are illegal aliens, students, out of state transients coming for “free care,” and people who choose NOT to be insured.

   Whoever these people are, there are a huge number of them and they use a lot of health care.

   The OTHER issue is that obviously hospital reimbursements have been set penuriously low.

   And so the socialization of Massachusetts begins, with a vast constriction in services available. Welcome to (medical) hell.

   Posted 18 Mar 2008 at 10:53 am ¶
6. Marc Brown wrote:

   I would have thought you free market junkies would be applauding the Mass reform - it is leading on consumer led choice of low cost plans. People in Mass now have a wide choice not available before. (And as a mandate - not a national/state insurance - system no one could expect it to offer universal coverage from day one.) So it looks to me like government intervention for consumer choice with a backstop for the poor. As for the uninsured, the figure in Mass has dropped hugely - by about 75% so far.

   And here a question for Catron - would you have preferred that your government hadn’t intervened in Bear Stearns and interest rates? Isn’t this meddling with the free market?

   Posted 18 Mar 2008 at 4:37 pm ¶
7. Catron wrote:

   “Would you have preferred that your government hadn’t intervened in Bear Stearns and interest rates?”

   Yes.

   “I would have thought you free market junkies would be applauding the Mass reform.”

   Even you don’t believe this silly statement.

   Posted 18 Mar 2008 at 8:25 pm ¶
8. Marc Brown wrote:

   Goodness me - do you even agree with accounting rules for public companies?

   As for Mass, surely the availability of more lower cost plans is at least on the way to the consumer choice you espouse.

   Posted 19 Mar 2008 at 3:56 am ¶
9. Rich wrote:

   “People in Mass now have a wide choice not available before.”

   And their liberty is trampled as a choice they DID have before is removed - the choice NOT to have a plan.

   Once people are FORCED to have a plan, then they can be forced to do anything to abide by the rules of the plan, e.g. quit smoking or you will not have a plan. No plan - pay the penalty. Ahhh - the land of the free…

   Posted 19 Mar 2008 at 7:12 am ¶
10. Ed Sodaro MD wrote:

    Massachusetts is going to see a vast reduction in hospital services available every year, for many years to come. Many health care workers are going to lose their jobs. All that “universal” coverage will be meaningless as there will be no treatment will be there when it is needed.

    I call this the “Ontario-ization” of Massachusetts. “Universal coverage” with much of the population with no PCPs. Doctor fees set less than Medicaid. No beds at the greatly shrunk hospitals. Third rate care even if you get admitted by greatly shrunk staff. Old out-of-date equipment. No options if you are desparately sick. No options. No choice. Passive aggressive bureaucratized second rate doctors who don’t give a darn.

    This is the antithesis of a free market solution. Or perhaps the usual Orwellian definition of free market.

    Posted 19 Mar 2008 at 8:12 am ¶
11. Marc Brown wrote:

    ‘And their liberty is trampled as a choice they DID have before is removed - the choice NOT to have a plan.’

    That’s a grown up society for you.

    ‘Massachusetts is going to see a vast reduction in hospital services available every year, for many years to come.’

    No, it’s not.

    Posted 19 Mar 2008 at 4:36 pm ¶
12. SmartDoc wrote:

    Is it too much to actually read the above post or the Boston Globe original article? To say “No its not” to the developing severe medical services contriction in Massachusetts is simply an absolute denial of reality.

    From the very beginning of the Globe report:

    “Cambridge Health Alliance, a key part of the Boston area’s healthcare network, is facing a potentially “catastrophic” loss this year and is looking to eliminate up to 300 jobs, or about 9 percent of its workforce, in an effort to stabilize finances.

    The alliance, which includes Cambridge Hospital, Somerville Hospital, and Whidden Hospital in Everett, says it is being hit hard by the state’s new healthcare reform law, which has left it responsible for providing free care for those without insurance while reducing the hospitals’ compensation for such services.”

    Posted 19 Mar 2008 at 6:38 pm ¶
13. BobMan wrote:

    No worries, just send everybody to India! Med Care Cheep!

    See:

    http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_12/b4076036777780.htm

    Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 8:54 am ¶
14. Marc Brown wrote:

    ‘No worries, just send everybody to India! Med Care Cheep!’

    I’m surprised Catron allowed this - it exposes just how overpriced US medicine is.

    ‘Is it too much to actually read the above post or the Boston Globe original article?’

    I read it all - as I said above, others think that the Alliance is poorly managed. Have a look at the link below, which is about a similar group that anticipated change. Also consider that Boston has some of the highest priced medicine in the world and wonder whether docs should perhaps earn less. And the head of the Cambridge Alliance makes about $630,000 a year.

    http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x1775733049

    ‘But Boston Medical Center, which received much of the same funding for uninsured patients as the Cambridge Health Alliance before last year’s health insurance reform, isn’t reporting similar financial problems.’

    Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 11:05 am ¶

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