The AP (4/15) reported that on April 14 at a breakfast meeting of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Massachusetts "Senate President Therese Murray (D-Plymouth) said...that her plan to control healthcare insurance costs for small businesses is critical to jump-starting the" state's economy. The proposed legislation, which the senator plans to file within the next 30 days, "helps small businesses by ensuring that health insurance carriers offer affordable products, addresses rate volatility, and makes sure premium payments are spent on healthcare, and not administrative costs or salaries." She is asking "healthcare providers to contribute $100 million this year to insurers for reducing small business premiums," and also plans to propose a bill to replace the fee-for-service system of provider reimbursement.

        "Massachusetts hospital executives are reviewing Senate President Therese Murray's call for providers to contribute $100 million to help reduce soaring healthcare costs paid by small businesses, but they made no commitment to follow the lead of Partners HealthCare, which has pledged $40 million this year," the Boston Globe (4/15, Kowalczyk, Weisman) reported. The Globe captures reactions from Tufts Medical Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Children's Hospital Boston, all of which remain "cautious about following Partners." Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Hospital Association remains "noncommittal."

        State Health, Hospital Executives Blame Consumer Habits For Escalating Healthcare Costs. The Boston Herald (4/15, McConville) reports that at the same Chamber of Commerce breakfast at which Murray discussed her proposed bill, Massachusetts "hospital and insurance heavies blamed fat-slob consumers rather than their own practices for escalating health-care costs, sparking a blaming-the-victim outcry from public health experts." In response to remarks on individual responsibility to healthcare made by Jack Connors of Partners HealthCare and Paul Guzzi of Blue Cross Blue Shield, Boston University public health professor Alan Sager stated, "Sure, individual responsibility matters, but the responsibility for efficient, affordable, high-quality health care for all Americans falls on everybody who works in health care."

        BGlobe Says Small Businesses Need More Help From Insurers And Hospitals To Keep Health Costs Down. The Boston Globe (4/15) editorializes that proposals in the bill Murray plans to introduce "are all sensible lifelines to small businesses. Missing from Murray's plan, though, is the governor's proposal for legislative authority to hold down the rates that hospitals and doctors are getting." The Globe asserts that "business owners will get minimal relief on their premiums if their insurers succeed in curbing their administrative costs, only to confront ballooning levels of reimbursements for providers." Calling the $40 million contribution by Partners Healthcare "a positive gesture," the Globe nevertheless concludes that "struggling small businesses need a lot more help -- from insurers and hospitals."

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