Legislature's hidden tax increase

Upside down priorities (0.00 / 0)

Thanks for making this so clear Kite.

Cheaper cigarettes to bolster the "NH advantage" -- that's more important than keeping non profit hospitals up and running.

---

by: Chaz Proulx @ Sat Jun 18, 2011 at 12:57:11 PM UTC

Well, after all, (4.00 / 2)

they are non-profit, and that is socialism, you know.  If you're not doing it for profit, it is anti-American and communism, etc.  

---

by: Lucy Edwards @ Sat Jun 18, 2011 at 12:58:31 PM UTC

A long and twisted story (0.00 / 0)

As I understand it, this comes out of Judd Gregg's Mediscam.

The idea was: the federal government would provide matching funds for some state spending on health care. So, the state set up a phony tax. The state imposed a tax of about $100M on hospitals - and then immediately used that $100M to fund health care support to those hospitals. The tax check from the hospital and the grant check to the hospital were actually written on the same day!  Then, the federal government match that $100M state "spending."

The hospitals worried that the state would some day a) stop writing grants, but b) continue collecting the tax.

The legislature just did exactly that.

---

by: elwood @ Sat Jun 18, 2011 at 13:58:19 PM UTC

How low do we expect them to go? (4.00 / 2)

So in this state the only state-supported health care is Medicaid (and we all know how much the state spends on that) and these DSH funds (which is really the hospital tax returned to the hospitals!)

If you can't afford insurance in this state, you're only recourse is to go to your care provider and ask for charity, a discount, a payment plan, whatever. The state itself DOES NOTHING to help support you in the insurance market. Our neighbors had Catamount (VT), Dirigo (ME), and Romneycare (MA) -- SOMETHING to help the uninsured. Each had varying degrees of success in their initial form. Most are now working to achieve systems that work fully AND bring down costs.

In NH there has never been any attempt to come up with public support for individuals or small business trying to get coverage. It has been left to the care providers to establish the state-wide Health Access Network, which set criteria (through an application process) for minimum discounts or free coverage for those uninsured. But that is not insurance!

And the number of uninsured had been increasing faster during the recession.

Now we're going to still tax, but then deny, these funds to the hospitals. Do we care what might happen to the quality of our health care --even for those who are insured -- if revenues are chopped to many of our regional non-profit hospitals?

I doubt we'll really control the cost of health care and maintain quality just by telling the care providers we gonna pay them less, much less.

We've had a quality health care delivery system here in NH, even though expensive from the insurance angle. But unilaterally cutting out state funds and dropping the cost curtailment onto the hospitals does not ensure future continued quality in our system. It just heaps more charity burden on the careproviders.

And then there's always the cost shifting...

JillSH

---

by: JillSH @ Mon Jun 20, 2011 at 22:14:11 PM UTC