Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley says state governments should have the power to intervene against large-scale health care providers whose contracts charge “excessive” amounts, Mass Live reports.
In an address to the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, Coakley called the current health care market “dysfunctional,” saying that market power, and not quantity and quality of service, was the driving force behind current health care costs. In her address, Coakley outlined three steps state government can take to reign in prices, among them the power to reject health care contracts that the state deems “excessive.”
“Starting in 2015, if the market has not corrected unwarranted price variation, the administration should be able to reject health plan contracts with excessive or inadequate provider price variations,” Coakley said in remarks recorded by Mass Live.
Coakley also proposed that hospitals be required to disclose the prices of procedures and that health care providers who “reach a certain size” undergo “a market impact review to determine whether the provider’s size is having a negative impact on consumer choice, access, or healthy market function.”
As Mass Live notes, Coakley's proposals echo suggestions made recently by a Massachusetts state panel which stated that “wide price variations” in health care costs are related not “to the complexity or quality of care or even the severity of illness” but “the market clout of certain providers.” The panel went on to recommend the institution of price controls on the health care market.
