Gov signs health care overhaul bill

BOSTON, Mass, (WWLP) - Governor Deval Patrick signed a health care overhaul bill Monday designed to save Massachusetts $200 billion dollars over the next 15 years.  

“Today we become the first to crack the code on costs,” said Patrick before signing the bill.

The law reforms how we pay for health care; It rewards doctors and hospitals by how well they keep patients healthy and not by how many patients they see.

“We are ushering in the end of the fee-for-service care system in Massachusetts in favor of better care at lower costs,” said Patrick.

Under the new law, hospitals and doctors are expected to cut health care spending in half and link the growth rate to the state economy. So instead of costs going up by about 7 percent a year, they will only be allowed to rise by about 3.5 percent. 

“The establishment of a health care cost growth benchmark will mean that the costs that are already going down, will go down even further,” said House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop).

The bill establishes a new state board to help providers come up with plans to reduce costs, but there are no penalties for failing to meet these goals.  Nevertheless, critics accuse the government of interfering with the market.

“In many ways this is a reversion back to top down failed government approaches to control health care and then on top of that it adds hundreds of millions of dollars in new surcharges, penalties and fees that ultimately be passed onto consumers,” said the Health Care Policy Director of the Pioneer Institute Josh Archambault.

President Barack Obama’s national health care law was modeled on Massachusetts health care reform in 2006, so now all eyes are on the state again to see if this bill can contain health costs.