6/5/10
LETTERS
GRAPPLING WITH HEALTH CARE COSTS
Revise the process
That the state’s largest health insurers seek double-digit rate increases is cause for concern among those who depend on them to help pay for the high cost of medical care (“2 insurers again seek double-digit increases,’’ Page A1, June 3). In the short run, if they are approved, employers that offer coverage will raise cost-sharing amounts or cut benefits, and more insured people will have trouble paying for needed services.
In the long run, as long as insurers pay for individual services, this story will repeat every year because their costs, like the cost of everything else, keep going up.
Insurers need to start paying, not for the individual services used, but for taking care of people. Then provider groups can aggregate the funds into a budget, which they can use in creative ways to provide the most benefit to their patients. In the process, they will avoid unnecessary services and their associated costs.
Until that happens, we can expect to see this story again, with increasingly harmful effects.
Stephen M. Davidson
Brookline
The writer is a professor at Boston University School of Management and author of “Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System.’’
