Yesterday’s N&R lead editorial calls for Moses Cone Health System and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina to resume negotiations:
If Cone and Blue Cross fail to come to terms, Blue Cross members would be forced either to pay higher costs for care at Cone-affiliated hospitals — except for emergency room care — or travel out of town to neighboring communities that still have contracts with Blue Cross.
Meanwhile, both parties have ramped up their rhetoric, pitched to convince consumers that one is the good guy and other is the greedy villain.
Cone CEO Tim Rice contended in an Aug. 9 News & Record op-ed that Blue Cross “is protecting its profits instead of devoting your premium dollars to quality care.”
Countered Blue Cross CEO Bob Greczyn: “Remember, when Moses Cone says, ‘Blue Cross does not pay us fairly,’ what that really means is that you, the residents of Guilford County, are not paying enough of your money to Moses Cone.”
And so it goes, tit for tat…..
If the current impasse doesn’t end, Triad residents will lose either way, and those fuzzy commercials both Cone and Blue Cross like to air about their warm regard for patients will look like empty come-ons.
For their good and ours, Cone and Blue Cross would do well to resume their talks now.
As I’ve said before, I believe a deal will be worked out. The market is just too big here in Guilford County, including, as the editorial notes, 6,300 GCS employees. (I wonder what would happen if Superintendent Terry Grier fired off a letter to both parties.)
In my view, a key point that is being overlooked is Rice’s claim that Cone is being squeezed by low Medicare and Medicaid payments. That’s no doubt a plausible argument, though you also have to wonder if Cone truly is running as efficiently as it could knowing full well that the government doesn’t pay enough.
It’s also too bad Cone hasn’t gotten any of the hospital pork Democrats in Congress have been handing out:
Despite promises by Congress to end the secrecy of earmarks and other pet projects, the House of Representatives has quietly funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to specific hospitals and health care providers under a bill passed this month to help low-income children.
Instead of naming the hospitals, the bill describes them in cryptic terms, so that identifying a beneficiary is like solving a riddle. Most of the provisions were added to the bill at the request of Democratic lawmakers.
One hospital, Bay Area Medical Center, sits on Green Bay, straddling the border between Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, more than 200 miles north of Chicago. The bill would increase Medicare payments to the hospital by instructing federal officials to assume that it was in Chicago, where Medicare rates are set to cover substantially higher wages for hospital workers.
Such maneuvers, in my view, highlight the major problem with a socialized health care system: Funding will become even more politicized. Even with a single-payer system, the complex network of health care providers will still exist and will be vying for federal dollars to maintain supposedly efficient operations. As a result, legislators will be doing their best to make sure more money goes to their district. I’m not sure that’s what we want.
And, of course, the system will be cumbersome, as if it isn’t already. Listen to Rep. Pete Stark:
Granting relief to particular hospitals is sometimes a way for Congress to improve “the equity and fairness” of Medicare payments, Mr. Stark said. Under Medicare, he added, “you are basically setting prices, and the system is clumsy.”
