By Charlie Deitz
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wamc/local-wamc-956618.mp3
Massachusetts – A new study finds that health care reform in Massachusetts has actually led to an increase in medically related bankruptcies in the state. WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief Charlie Deitz reports that the authors fear national health reform will cause this to happen across the United States
Chapter 58 is the legislative term for Massachusetts landmark health care reform, designed under former Governor Mitt Romney and enacted under current governor Deval Patrick in 2007. One of the main components is the mandate, requiring all residents to have health coverage.
Doctor Steffie Woolhandler, who along with co-author Doctor David Himmelstein, released a study published in the American Journal of Medicine which indicates that medically related bankruptcies actually boomed over the first three years of Massachusetts health care reform. The two authors conducted the study while working as professors in medicine at Harvard, and are now teaching at the City University of New York. The report finds that in 2007, 7500 bankruptcies in Massachusetts were related to medical expenses, and just two years later that number was over 10 thousand, but because of the increase in bankruptcies as a whole, the medically related number was buried in the percentages.
Co-author David Himmelstein takes the position that expanding the private insurer model was a mistake, one the country is on the verge of repeating.
Himmelstein and his camp are pushing for a single payer, medicare for all type of reform, one that was talked about in the early days of the national health care debate, but he says it was co-opted by big insurance companies throwing their money against the single payer push. Amy Whitcomb-Slemmer is the Executive Director at Health Care for All Massachusetts, one of the main parties at the table when the state enacted its reform, she defends the mandate, saying that access to health care was the first step. She adds that Doctor Himmelstein has been rallying against insurance companies for years, and that his numbers don't add up with their figures.
Slemmer is curious to see how single payer initiatives play out, like the proposal by Vermont governor Peter Shumlin to transition into a public payer model over the next few years. She's concerned however that people need quality health care now, and single payer could take decades to get right. Health care for all Massachusetts is working on adding a global payment reform to the bay state, an outcomes based approach rather than the traditional fee for service payment system.
Himmelstein says the private insurer model will see even higher cost increases when the economy rebounds.
The study's authors say that national reform does little to nothing to reign in top heavy hospitals, which lean toward buying expensive machinery rather than focusing on cost containment. The commonwealth they say, should be a warning to Washington about medically related bankruptcies booming across the nation.