AUGUSTA \u2014 Health advocates and hospital officials sparred on Thursday over a bill that aims to reduce health care costs by capping hospital prices.<\/p>\n
The bill, LD 2196<\/a>, would cap hospital prices for private insurance at 200% of Medicare rates, which hospital officials said would harm the health care system financially and result in cuts to services and closures. The bill\u2019s supporters argued the proposal would help limit the cost of health care.<\/p>\n Rep. Drew Gattine, D-Westbrook, the bill\u2019s sponsor, said during a public hearing on Thursday that the cost of health care is rising rapidly, and the \u201cstatus quo is not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to affording health care, Maine families have been hit with a wave of bad news: skyrocketing health insurance costs, an explosion in medical debt, rising premiums,\u201d Gattine said.<\/p>\n Meg Garrett-Reed, executive director of the Office of Affordable Health Care, an agency created by the Legislature, said during the public hearing before the Health and Human Services Committee that hospital prices \u201chave a direct relationship between the insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs\u201d paid by Maine residents with private insurance.<\/p>\n The Maine Hospital Association estimates the bill, if enacted, would result in $1 billion in revenue losses for hospitals across the state.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe this legislation will collapse Maine\u2019s health care system,\u201d Dr. Guy Hudson, Northern Light Health\u2019s president and CEO, said in testimony before the committee on Thursday.<\/p>\n Dr. Andy Mueller, CEO of MaineHealth, the largest health care system in Maine and parent company of Maine Medical Center in Portland, said in an interview before the hearing that hospitals would close if the bill passes, among other service cutbacks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe current health access crisis in Maine will become a catastrophic access crisis if this bill becomes law,\u201d Mueller said.<\/p>\n Hospitals have cited financial issues as the reason for service cutbacks in recent years, including Northern Light Health closing\u00a0Inland Hospital<\/a>\u00a0in Waterville last year, MaineGeneral Health shuttering the\u00a0Edmund N. Ervin Pediatric Center<\/a>\u00a0last year, and the closures of maternity wards across the state. <\/p>\n Sara Gagne-Holmes, Maine\u2019s health and human services commissioner, said in written testimony on Thursday that state officials \u201cwill be closely monitoring\u201d the bill.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe this bill will elicit critical conversations that will help advance decisions regarding health care affordability in the state,\u201d Gagne-Holmes said.<\/p>\n If the bill passes, MaineHealth would have to layoff 8,000 of its 24,000 employees, cut services and shutter the neonatal intensive care unit at Maine Med, Mueller said.<\/p>\n That unit serves over 400 infants per year, and closing it would make access difficult, Sarah Thompson, nursing director for the hospital\u2019s NICU, said in an interview before the public hearing. Many, Thompson said, would have to travel to Boston for care.<\/p>\n \u201cTaking care of Mainers in Maine is something we should be proud of, and not outsource,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n Because Medicare and Medicaid pay less than what it costs to provide the services, hospitals make up the losses by charging private insurance more, hospital officials said.<\/p>\n Maine hospitals charge private insurance an average of about 250% of Medicare rates, said Trevor Putnoky, president and CEO of the Healthcare Purchaser Alliance of Maine, which represents companies that purchase private health insurance.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cost of health care has become an albatross around the neck of our economy, and an unsustainable burden on the backs of Maine people and employers,\u201d said Putnoky, who testified in favor of the bill Thursday.<\/p>\n Where the cap should be set is unclear without further analysis, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to say where the Legislature should set a cap on prices. It may be 200%. It may be 300 to 400%,\u201d Putnoky said.<\/p>\n Members of the committee will discuss the proposed bill during a workshop session in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n Committee member Rep. Sam Zager, D-Portland, said during the hearing Thursday that \u201cthere\u2019s a tremendous hazard in not doing anything. Our constituents are extremely frustrated and scared and going without care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUGUSTA \u2014 Health advocates and hospital officials sparred on Thursday over a bill that aims to reduce health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-507617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}