Paying our hospitals
and lowering health care costs
By Sen. Troy Jackson
(D-Allagash)
It is impossible to read the news lately without hearing about the debt Maine owes its hospitals. The Legislature is now looking at ways to pay the remainder in full.
Governor LePage has a proposal, but unfortunately he has advocated for it by resorting to threats and Washington-style do nothing politics. He submitted a bill that appears to be unconstitutional, and even threatened to veto most bills until his bill passes. That is unacceptable, and if he follows through with that threat, the state will suffer.
The fact is that for all of the heated rhetoric, we still need to pay the hospitals and we still need to cut high health care costs that helped to explode this debt in the first place. Democrats presented a plan to do this last week.
Our plan will pay off the hospitals in full by Sept. 30, 2013 with no risk to Maine taxpayers. In fact, our plan will save Maine taxpayers $45 million by avoiding interest payments and finance charges. It is constitutional, and doesn’t borrow to pay off debt.
We will do this by putting the state’s liquor contract out to bid, and requiring the winning private sector bidder to put a certain amount of money up front – this money will go to the hospitals. This payment would trigger a federal match of $298 million, eliminating the debt.
Our plan leaves the state’s liquor business to the private sector, which will ensure it is run by experts. It differs from the Governor’s proposal in that it does not rely on borrowing, which would be irresponsible considering the millions of dollars in voter-approved bonds that the Governor has yet to issue.
Our plan also addresses current health care costs. We are proposing three reforms to reduce costs in the future which is crucial to ensuring that debts like this one do not happen again:
• Transparency in billing — we’re expected to pay our bills and we should also know what’s in our bills, especially if there’s a large difference between the price charged, and the actual cost of the service. A recent report by Time magazine highlighted these differences in hospital charges, including one hospital that charged $77 for gauze.
• Payment reform and care management — we should pay for healthier outcomes, not the number of tests ordered.
• Health care for 70,000 more Mainers — it’s only common sense to accept federal funds to insure more people. Not only will it give more people access to health care, it will save us $690 million and reduce hospitals’ charity care costs.
In addition to this plan, I have also co-sponsored legislation to support hospitals and families in Aroostook County by establishing a fairer system for hospital “tiering” with regards to the coverage of state workers. As it stands now, hospitals such as Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent and Cary Medical Center in Caribou could be ranked as “Tier 2,” meaning that patients who seek care there could have to pay deductibles of up to $1,000 more than those who receive care from Tier 1 hospitals.
The system for tiering is not transparent, it’s unfair to hospitals like these two which provide excellent care, and it is especially unfair to state workers living in Aroostook County who are at risk of being gouged based on which hospitals they live closest to.
All of these reforms put together will fulfill our fiscal obligations while protecting consumers. Everybody wins. But to succeed will require leadership, not threats. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and get back to work.
