Under the program, hospitals will form Coordinating Care Organizations that, in cooperation with counties, will manage and provide medical care for about 32,000 single adults. The measure must be approved by the Legislature and signed by Pawlenty.
However, hospitals will be paid a lump sum to cover all GAMC patients, so may have incentives to control costs. All care they provide beyond the single payment must be covered by the hospitals.
The new program, like all of the proposals that have been made to save GAMC, falls squarely into the “better than nothing” category. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s certainly better than either refusing coverage or forcing the hospitals to provide coverage without reimbursement.
I have to say, so far this session I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the willingness of the state’s political leaders to make compromises and get things done. Do I dare to hope that next year we might even be able to tackle our budget deficit?
The GAMC “solution” pays hospitals a pittance for serving the desperately poor and sick. They will make up the difference by charging more to people who have insurance. This will result in rising premiums for the insured. County hospitals will end up in the hole, which will mean your property taxes will go up if you live in a county (like Hennepin or Ramsey) with one of the Coordinating hospitals. This is a fix that allows Pawlenty to claim he didn’t raise taxes. It isn’t a fix that solves anything really.
Let me just add that our insurance premiums also subsidize underpayments by Medicaid and the heralded Medicare programs.
Yeppers. We pay one way or the other. Let’s figure out the most efficient way to pay. That’s why the no new taxes crowd drives me nuts, because they don’t realize they are paying anyway.
Right now, we subsidize the most unhealthy, the sickest, and the poorest. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to spread that across a larger pool? Our taxes would go up, but we would pay less overall!
Uh oh Alec - are we agreeing on this? That the required money is in the system already (actually more than enough if we truly are the cost outlier)?
I’m with you on that. I also understand the math of expanding risk pools. I totally agree. There are several ways to get there, some that I would favor and some that I would not.
“some that I would favor, and some that I would not”
Is there any reason for you to believe that anybody cares, after reading your incessant blather, about your opinion…on anything?