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Last week Rhode Island joined the small but growing club of states that have explicitly created a statewide goal for holding down health care cost growth.
Raimondo order creates target for limiting growth of health-care costs
Massachusetts created its first-in-the-nation statewide benchmark for health spending growth six years ago; the latest data out of the state has been promising.
Delaware became the second state to set a target last year; its target for 2019 is higher than MA's and RI's.
Delaware Sets Health Care Spending Benchmark
We'll see what impact these moves have on focusing attention in Delaware and Rhode Island.
Raimondo order creates target for limiting growth of health-care costs
Against this backdrop, Democrat Raimondo’s executive order establishes a “Rhode Island Health Care Cost Growth Target″ of 3.2 percent — over 2018 health care spending — for 2019 through 2022 “across all Rhode Island health care markets and populations.”
During that time, the executive order directs the state health insurance commissioner’s office and the super-agency known as the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to “engage relevant parties, including insurers, providers, and community partners, to develop strategies” to help meet the target, and “ensure that consumers and businesses purchasing health insurance share in the positive impact.”
The order also envisions further efforts by a previously created “Cost Growth Steering Committee to monitor and issue recommendations.”
It remains to be seen how much impact a governor can have on ballooning health-care costs, but it hinges on the stated belief that: “Enhanced transparency and shared accountability for a health care spending target can be used to accelerate changes in our health care delivery system, creating benefits for employers, state government, and Rhode Islanders.”
Massachusetts created its first-in-the-nation statewide benchmark for health spending growth six years ago; the latest data out of the state has been promising.
Massachusetts' total healthcare spending grew by 1.6% in 2017, falling well below the state benchmark and the national average, according to a new report.
The latest figures show Massachusetts' healthcare spending grew at nearly half the rate it did in 2015 and 2016 and well below the state's 3.6% cost growth benchmark, according to the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission's 2018 Cost Trends Report. The national average was close to 4% in 2017.
Total spending hikes in Massachusetts averaged 3.2% between 2012 and 2017, helping the state avoid $5.5 billion in projected additional spending, according to the report.
Delaware became the second state to set a target last year; its target for 2019 is higher than MA's and RI's.
Delaware Sets Health Care Spending Benchmark
NEW CASTLE, Del. – The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council (DEFAC) on Wednesday issued a recommended Benchmark Index that set the state’s health care spending growth target at 3.8 percent for 2019 – the initial year of Delaware’s newly created Health Care Spending Benchmark. This move furthers the state’s goals of managing the growth of future health care spending, increasing transparency into how health care is delivered and paid for, and improving the quality and cost of health care for the citizens of Delaware.
DEFAC set the target based on Executive Order 25 signed by Governor John Carney in November. The order called for the initial benchmark to be equivalent to the advisory Benchmark Index for overall State budget growth established under Executive Order 21 signed by the Governor in June 2018.
We'll see what impact these moves have on focusing attention in Delaware and Rhode Island.