Once again, the health insurance establishment shows itself to know the price of everything but the value of nothing. This cost shifting by BC/BS reflects the belief that patients won't mind going to a community hospital instead of a teaching hospital because doing so will save money for themselves and, wink-wink, their insurers (Three guesses: What will the insurers do with the money saved?). After all, a hospital is a hospital and a specialist is a specialist, right?
Here's the tenor of the deal offered: "The Blue Cross Hospital Choice plan, which went on sale last month, charges members, for example, an extra $1,000 for an inpatient stay or outpatient surgery, and $450 more for an MRI, at 15 higher-cost hospitals, including Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals, Children’s Hospital Boston, and UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. Companies and workers that sign up get a significant break on their health insurance premiums: a 4.5 percent increase for the first quarter of the year instead of a 10 percent increase."
What a deal! You can pay $1,000 more in your choice of ways: Either stay in the hospital following surgery or go home the same day as the surgery. In other words, you will pay $1,000 more no matter which choice you make! And, to sweeten the deal, BC/BS says that, while everyone pays an increase every year, if you choose this new plan, your increase will be less--but only for the first three months of the first year. To seal the deal, the state will pay each employee's three-month share of the premium when the employer enrolls. With choices like these, how could anyone refuse to enroll?
Wait until employees referred for medical treatment to a hospital find out they can't choose the hospital. For "those" people not affected by price--I guess you can call them "price inelastic"--it's no big deal. They will continue to go where they want for the services they need, regardless of cost. But, for the working-class guy or gal and their families, the new plan means they've been "price triaged"--they have less money to spend on their treatment, so the system sends them to the lowest-cost provider. As Stevie Wonder put it: "Livin' just enough for the city." Or, rather, dyin'.
To add insult to injury (pun intended), the reporter quotes the head of an insurance agency on why this plan is such a good idea: "These plans 'really help the employer and the employee start to understand what is driving health care premiums higher', said Paul Pietro, chairman of Mid-State Insurance Agency Inc., an insurance broker in Worcester. 'Simple things, like MRIs and CAT scans, if you’re just able to stay out of those hospital settings, that can save money. It helps everybody'." If you can't believe an insurance broker about what is good for your health, who can you believe?
So, while I don't want to encourage use of Sarah Palin's "death panel" phrase, the BC/BS MA plan comes closer to what Ms. Palin meant than President Obama's initiative.
What do you think?
