Charlie Baker’s statement, on the new health care reform law was pretty simple, pretty clear, and pretty unequivocal.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles D. Baker Jr., a former chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, condemned the bill, saying it would increase the deficit and result in higher taxes or cuts in federal aid for teaching hospitals, medical device companies, and other health care firms that make up one-third of the Massachusetts economy.
“I’m sad for my country, and I’m sad for my state,” Baker said. “This is a bad deal for Massachusetts, and I think it’s a bad deal for the country. I think the math in this thing is appalling. . . . We’re basically going to be dumping an onerous burden onto our children and grandchildren.”
Baker added that the procedural tactics used to advance the bill were “as ugly as anything I’ve ever seen.”
Not much wiggle room there, right? But wait a sec … it’s “a bad deal for Massachusetts”? Is the Globe wrong when it says that
Massachusetts would receive a $2 billion boost in Medicaid assistance over 10 years to help pay for insurance coverage for lower-income residents. The money comes through a provision to compensate states for covering more Medicaid patients; Massachusetts already covers more low-income residents than most states.
Or what about Mike Capuano, who told Emily Rooney that he agreed to vote for the bill after satisfying himself that most of the stuff that potentially harmed Massachusetts was fixed? Was he wrong too? (better link)
Well, no, not exactly. You see, what Charlie Baker told Emily Rooney right after Capuano talked to her is that Capuano is actually right that the bad stuff for MA was removed — if we get the reconciliation bill.
They get eliminated only if you ultimately get the reconciliation bill passed. They don’t get solved if we end up with just the Senate bill. And so I think in some respects that question is still very much an open issue…. We’ll see.
Ah, terrific. Since the reconciliation bill is now on its way to the President’s desk, I assume that health care reform is now not a bad deal for Massachusetts. Right?
And what about the onerous financial burden? Sadly, Charlie gets his facts wrong on this one by repeating the 10/6 fallacy, as explained in detail here.
Charlie also talked about the proposed cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates, complaining that they would hurt Massachusetts.
Now, let’s think about that for a sec. Medicare cutting reimbursement rates is precisely the same as a health insurer like, say, Harvard Pilgrim telling hospitals it wants to pay them less. The only difference is that Medicare is a public plan, and Harvard Pilgrim is privately owned. So my question is this: when Charlie Baker was CEO of Harvard Pilgrim, did he ever try to get providers to accept less in reimbursement?
primary care
reconciliation
holiday, but not a workday
did you work on BH/Evac day?
did you cash out any vaca time?
