MHA Official Decries Cost-Shifting
Dan McHale, senior director of state government finance and policy at the Massachusetts Hospitals Association (MHA), voiced opposition last week to a measure to shift the cost of funding the state Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) entirely onto insurers and providers.
CHIA was created in 2012 under state health care reform, and replaces many of the functions of the former Division of Health Care Finance and Policy (DHCFP). The agency, which provides analysis of the state health care system, has traditionally been funded by the state, as well as insurers and providers, MHA said.
But a new proposal by the CHIA would split the cost to run the organization evenly between insurers and providers.
In testimony before CHIA on March 27, McHale said "this shifting of state costs onto hospitals, (ambulatory surgical centers) and insurers will drive up their costs despite claims by the state that it wants these very same health care stakeholders to lower their costs. Such a policy is neither reasonable nor fair.
"State government is forcing these stakeholders to pay for the expansion of this agency at the same time they are being forced to make difficult cost reduction decisions for their own workforce and services."
MHA has asked that the state charge insurers and providers 33 percent of CHIA funding costs, and that the state contribute a third of the costs as it has done historically.
CHIA is accepting public comment on the proposal through April 8.
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