Behind The Eight Ball

In case you missed it, according to the State House News Service, a commission of Beacon Hill legislators set to study Governor Patrick’s sweeping plans to overhaul the structure of health care in the Commonwealth has yet to meet.

The commission, which was established eight months ago when the Governor signed the budget, is “charged with studying cost and benefits of different care delivery models for MassHealth, the state’s $10-billion-a-year Medicaid program.”

While we applaud the Governor on his grand plan of making health insurance more affordable for the citizens of the Commonwealth, the lack of a report from the commission puts legislators behind the proverbial eight ball. Instead of heading into budget debates with a comprehensive analysis of each possible method available, we must start from square one.

We think that as a governing body, we owe it to the taxpayers of Massachusetts, to exhaust every resource and measure possible to find the delivery model that will best suit them. By no means does the Republican Party think our proposed model of a managed care system is the only solution. All we are asking the Governor is that he convenes the commission, to which we have had a Republican representative in place since July of 2010, so that an open and transparent decision may be made.

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