Friday, May 18, 2012

Not enough. Now, to the House.

According to its press release, the health care bill passed by the Massachusetts Senate yesterday does this:

Develops a process to track price variation among different health care providers over time and establishes a Special Commission to determine and quantify the acceptable and unacceptable factors contributing to price variation among providers.

Perhaps the House will offer more, as this Senate provision will mainly allow folks to document -- again -- what has been going on for years, disparate rates paid by insurers for the same services under a system of ratemaking that has no accountability, that is guided mainly by market power.  

While the Senate bill offers much good in other respects, this is a disappointing result for the state's consumers and employers.

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