| Area hospital administrators were given some reason to hope recently, when the state Senate’s Ways & Means Committee came out with an FY ’06 budget proposal that restores $120 million that the Romney administration wants to cut from the health care services for the uninsured.
The governor’s proposed reduction in the state’s contribution to the Uncompensated Care Pool (UCP) would be a disaster for the state hospitals — 60{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of which are still operating in the red — and we applaud both the House (which proposed restoring $80 million of that total) and the Senate for recognizing this.
But maintaining the status quo on the Uncompensated Care Pool is essentially the least that state officials could do for the Commonwealth’s hospitals, and we hope that sometime soon they can do much more to restore sound fiscal health to these facilities.
They can start by creating a system that provides insurance for more of the state’s residents, thereby reducing the bill for uninsured patients — a tab that is currently being picked up by hospitals, insurance companies, and, therefore, Bay State employers and their employees.
As area hospital leaders told The Healthcare News this month, chronic under-funding of the UCP, something that’s been going on for several years now, perpetuates a cycle that hurts hospitals, patients, and, in some ways, the overall economic health of a region like Western Mass.
As Steve Bradley, vice president for government and community relations for Baystate Health System explained, there is no such thing as ‘free care,’ a term often used to describe services provided for the uninsured — but by people who don’t work in health care.
Those in that sector know that these costs have to be borne by someone. The current UCP structure provides that they be picked up by the state, the Commonwealth’s hospitals, and insurers, with the hospitals picking up the largest share.
In the case of insurance companies, these costs are passed on to consumers (employers and their workers) in the form of higher premiums. And when the rates go up, employers either stop offering health insurance or they make their workers pick up a larger share. And in some cases, they may make up for the higher expense by reducing staff or not filling positions.
All of those options will eventually lead to more people being without health insurance — which leads to more of that free care that isn’t really free, which leads to more increases in health insurance premiums, which leads …. well, you get the idea.
To break this cycle, and to give hospitals the breathing room they need to fund programs, buy new equipment, and fully staff departments, the state must address the problem of the uninsured and not merely pass that responsibility onto hospitals. Restoring the $120 million that the Romney administration wanted to cut from UCP — thus reducing the state’s commitment to that program — is merely a start.
While most Western Mass. legislators have been openly supportive of the area’s hospitals and other health care providers, many on Beacon Hill are still not seeing the bigger picture. They still tend to look at health care in the same way they look at funding higher education — as an expense.
In reality, spending in both cases are investments in the future of the Commonwealth. Health care is one of the better performing economic engines in this state at the time being — manufacturing is in serious decline, tourism is sputtering, and technology is still in a recovery mode.
Health care is growing, and it would grow at a faster, better rate if hospitals were given a chance to stop treading water and instead make some real investments themselves.
Assessing the current budget proposals, Bradley, like other hospital administrators, sees the House and Senate budget proposals as indications that some people on Beacon Hill actually ‘get it.’ Still, maintaining the status quo is not enough to help turn around a long, rough ride for hospitals and projections for more of the same.
“There’s an opportunity here to do what’s right,” Bradley said, referring to this budget, but also the larger issue of health care funding in the Bay State. We hope he’s right. |
