A few, like No. 1-rated Johns Hopkins in Maryland, are mandated under state law to accept all insurance companies
That sounds like a totally sane statutory requirement. Why don't more states have it? Collusion between hospital chains and insurers is the crux of the health care cost problem in the US.
I'm guessing current laws were written around the "managed care" (HMO/PPO) system, the previous (70s-90s) attempt at healthcare reform.
For that one, the theory was that the payment/administration bureaucracy was the cause of the health care cost problem, and that by having insurance companies buy hospital service in bulk rather than doing individual-service billing the overhead could be reduced and accountability would be increased. This requires insurers to be able to assign customers to hospitals and doctors that work for them for it to work.
I'm sort of confused by how authorship works in the US News & World Report generally, and clicking around a bit on the site doesn't clarify it. Do they have professional staff reporters? Is it just reblogging stuff from elsewhere? Are they buying freelance pieces? Is it like Forbes where there's a "Forbes proper" and an "anybody can blog on Forbes.com here" section (and if so, how do I tell which is which)? I can't really sort out what the intended semantics are for an article published on usnews.com but with a byline of another website.
Seems confusing, but in any case, letting outside lobbying groups run news articles in their pages, not marked as either contributed op-eds or paid messages, is a bit weird.
If hospitals get federal money for anything they will be required to accept insurance offered on the exchange that meet some minimum qualification. At least the two that were blessed as the national options.
Or insurance companies will be required to put an offering on the exchange...likely both.
Like the states refusing to expand Medicaid and set up their exchanges, the hospitals are hastening the transition to a single payer healthcare system by refusing to play ball.
Sometimes I wonder if some genius "systems thinkers" in Washington planned that out as the end game all along. Add in the factor that some states have almost no hospitals, thus the insurance companies have no leverage to lower premiums, which leads to why certain states have very high ACA premiums. Theoretically the free market says that another hospital would pop up to compete on price, but theory ain't practice...
[+] [-] tptacek|12 years ago|reply
That sounds like a totally sane statutory requirement. Why don't more states have it? Collusion between hospital chains and insurers is the crux of the health care cost problem in the US.
[+] [-] clavalle|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcoates|12 years ago|reply
For that one, the theory was that the payment/administration bureaucracy was the cause of the health care cost problem, and that by having insurance companies buy hospital service in bulk rather than doing individual-service billing the overhead could be reduced and accountability would be increased. This requires insurers to be able to assign customers to hospitals and doctors that work for them for it to work.
[+] [-] ams6110|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coreyh1444|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjn|12 years ago|reply
Seems confusing, but in any case, letting outside lobbying groups run news articles in their pages, not marked as either contributed op-eds or paid messages, is a bit weird.
[+] [-] clavalle|12 years ago|reply
If hospitals get federal money for anything they will be required to accept insurance offered on the exchange that meet some minimum qualification. At least the two that were blessed as the national options.
Or insurance companies will be required to put an offering on the exchange...likely both.
Like the states refusing to expand Medicaid and set up their exchanges, the hospitals are hastening the transition to a single payer healthcare system by refusing to play ball.
[+] [-] tunesmith|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|12 years ago|reply