The Boston Globe reports on RomneyCare:
Massachusetts House leaders released a major proposal to curb health care costs Friday, calling for new limits on the fees charged by hospitals and doctors and for creation of an independent agency to monitor medical spending. The lawmakers project their plan would save families an average of $2,000 annually on health insurance premiums.The central planners channel their inner Mikhail Suslov! No word yet when the Mass. House will start "planning" other sectors of the economy.
The long-awaited bill would require the health care industry to cut the growth in spending in about half by 2016, so that it is below the growth of the overall Massachusetts economy.
Providers that charge prices deemed excessive and that they cannot prove are linked to above-average quality would pay a tax, similar to the luxury tax Major League Baseball imposes on the big-spending New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. That money also would be redistributed to financially-shaky hospitals.
Related
Another key provision would charge hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, and insurers a one-time tax totaling about $200 million to help struggling hospitals that treat many poor patients.
