Capitol News Service
with consumers The state commission on Wednesday stuck to benchmarks for annual health care cost growth in the state.
The Health Policy Board decided to keep the 2024 benchmark at 3.6%. The decision follows a process in which employers raised affordability concerns and providers raised concerns about finances and earnings, workforce constraints, and access to healthcare.
Deborah Deboe, the chairman of the committee, said at Wednesday’s meeting that there was no value in raising the benchmark given the affordability issue, and that the benchmark was raised to put more pressure on cost control. It acknowledged “significant considerations” about the idea of lowering.
“I think it’s hard to justify doing that in 2022 when we see mixed data points about what’s going on with the pressure to provide care.” I think it will be an important year for us to figure out how to stabilize.”
The committee voted after a presentation that showed hospitals in the fourth quarter appear to be recovering from negative margins in early 2022.
HPC and its allies have, so far, given congressional powers to complement approaches to put more robust checks on rising health care costs and ensure that health care costs are in line with benchmarks tied to underlying gross conditions. have not been able to convince Congress to give product.
According to David Seltz, executive director of HPC, total healthcare spending has increased by an average of 3.52% annually over the past nine years.
The committee vote allowed us to exceed the statutory deadline of April 15th for setting the benchmark by two days. A two-thirds vote is required to change the benchmark.
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