A Serious Problem: Health Costs in Massachusetts

A new poll is out from Massachusetts, where ObomneyCare has been in force for several years, and the results are as expected: health care costs are crippling patients and their families (http://www.wbur.org/2012/06/11/health-care-costs-poll). Excerpts:

We’re hearing from a lot of different groups lately about what’s wrong with health care and how to fix it. But what do patients think? To find out, we asked Massachusetts residents who said they had a serious illness, medical condition, injury or disability requiring a lot of medical care, or spent at least one night in the hospital within the last year.

Our poll, Sick in Massachusetts, finds that 78 percent of patient respondents say the cost of care is a very serious or somewhat serious problem. And 63 percent say the problem has gotten worse over the last five years. (Click through the four charts below for some of the poll’s primary findings. The poll was conducted in partnership with the Harvard School of Public Health, the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation and WBUR.)

Selected WBUR Poll Data Points:
On Health Care Costs In Massachusetts::
- 50% said health care costs are a very serious problem
- 28% said costs are a somewhat serious problem
- 15% said costs are not a problem

‘Major Reasons’ For Rising Health Care Costs:
- 86% said drug companies charging too much money
- 78% said insurance companies charging too much
- 73% said hospitals charging too much

On Quality Of Health Care In Massachusetts:
- 52% said the quality of health care is not a problem
- 37% said the quality of health care is a problem

– Those polled had a serious illness, medical condition, injury or disability requiring a lot of medical care, or spent at least one night in the hospital within the last year.

My comment:

'Coverage' is not the essential problem to fix with health system reform. 'Cost' is the essential problem that must be fixed. As Massachusetts has now clearly pointed out, if you pretend to do health system reform by extending 'coverage' to more people, but leave costs on their soaring upward path, you will basically bankrupt families and public funding. Health system reform must do the heavy lifting by looking the corporate interests (pharma, insurance, hospitals, etc.) squarely in the eye and telling them that business as usual simply will not continue.

Whose ready for real health system reform in Utah?

Dr. Joe Jarvis