Health care costs every man, woman and child in the Bay State on average a whopping $7,550 per year, according to a landmark report that also found state residents receiving taxpayer-funded care account for 60 percent of the $50.5 billion total cost.
"People should be asking themselves if they're really getting $7,500 worth of quality health care every year, because if they're not, that's $7,500 that they're not taking home in their paycheck, that they're not spending for college tuition, and that they're not putting toward public education and a number of other priorities," said Joshua Archambault, director of health care policy at the Pioneer Institute. "I think everyone wants quality health care — but how many people would say that $6,000 worth of health care would be enough if they knew the rest could be freed up for other family expenses? I bet a lot of state residents would say they'd prefer that."
The report, which offers a first ever look at total health care expenditures in Massachusetts, will be released today by the state's Center for Health Information and Analysis, an organization created under state law in 2012 to monitor spending increases among doctors, hospitals and insurers. The report found overall a system-wide decrease in expenditures for 2013.
During that period, the state-mandated cost growth benchmark for health care was set at 3.6 percent — a benchmark successfully met, with total health care expenditures growing only by 2.3 percent. However, the report points out expenditures rose faster than inflation, which was 1.5 percent.
Spending for public coverage accounted for nearly 60 percent of the total health care expenditures in 2013, the report found.
Combined, Medicare programs spent $15.2 billion on care for state residents, making up 30 percent of the total cost and half of all public program expenditures. Total Medicare spending in Massachusetts grew 3.1 percent from 2012 to 2013, driven primarily by increases in enrollment, the report found.
Spending for the largest health insurance programs administered by the state, MassHealth and Commonwealth Care, made up about 25 percent of Massachusetts' health care expenditures, the report said.
Archambault noted that was before an influx of enrollees onto taxpayer-funded insurance under Obamacare.
"More and more people are on public insurance and it will only continue to get worse," he said.
In spite of a system-wide decrease in expenditures, the report revealed that the state's largest physician group, the controversial hospital behemoth Partners HealthCare, reported stark spending increases — making it the only physician group that was both higher than the network average and reported higher total medical expenses across all three major Massachusetts insurers.
"The numbers that we're hearing from the media are not consistent with the information that we have," Partners HealthCare spokesman Rich Copp said. "Measuring how insurers and providers are performing against the newly established cost growth benchmark is an important task, and we hope the state will work with the health care community to be certain that accurate information is being presented to the public."
Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful Martha Coakley's decision in May to let Partners HealthCare buy South Shore Hospital — under a deal that would limit its power to raise patient costs and the number of doctors in its system — has become a hot topic in the push to the Democratic primary. Her competitors yesterday seized on the opportunity to point to the CHIA report as evidence that approving the deal will only lead to higher costs.
"The approval of the Partners merger and the deal that the attorney general struck is nearly guaranteed to continue to support increased health care prices," Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Don Berwick said. Coakley's camp defended the deal yesterday.
"This report demonstrates that Partners continues to increase costs at a higher rate than nearly everyone else. That is why we brought our action to break up Partners' negotiating power and control costs across its entire network, instead of allowing the status quo to continue," Coakley spokesman Brad Puffer said. "Our action will save health costs for consumers and businesses while maintaining access to quality care south and north of Boston."
State Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Steve Grossman slammed Coakley for allowing the merger.
"The commonwealth's top health policy experts remain deeply concerned that the Attorney General's current agreement with Partners HealthCare, already the state's largest and highest cost health care system with some of the largest reported spending increases, will hurt Massachusetts families and businesses," Grossman said.
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