Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signs health care bills aimed at hospital oversight, reducing prescription drug costs
Published in Health & Fitness
BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey signed two major health care reform bills Wednesday — one that looks to increase hospital oversight in the wake of the Steward Health Care meltdown and another that attempts to tackle prescription drug costs.
And it was clear from at least one top Democrat’s remarks that lawmakers who negotiated the two proposals did not think they would have legislation before Healey after a chaotic end to the Legislature’s formal session this summer and wide disagreements between the House and Senate.
House Speaker Ron Mariano said the two original measures from the House and Senate “were two separate bills going in separate directions” when legislative negotiators first started to huddle in closed-door talks known as conference committees.
“Having done a ton of conference committees, I know how difficult it is to get a conference committee agreement on one issue. To be doing it simultaneously on two distinct issues is a challenge, and I think you witnessed the challenge. But the perseverance and the cooperation between the House and the Senate delivered us two good bills,” the Quincy Democrat said.
There were times in July, at the end of the Legislature’s formal session, that Mariano said he thought “no way this is going to happen.”
The hospital oversight bill Helaey signed prohibits the Department of Public Health from issuing hospital licenses to organizations where their main acute care campus is on property owned by a real estate investment trust.
The law expands the scope of data collection and public review of health care transactions from two entities, the Health Policy Commission and Center for Health Information and Analysis, a move that Healey argued would increase transparency around transactions involving private owners.
Mariano said the bill would prevent another crisis like the one induced by Steward Health Care, whose bankruptcy last year threatened the closure of major hospitals around Massachusetts and access to care for thousands of residents in the state.
“We’re here to say it’s never going to happen again,” Mariano said. “It will never happen again no matter how many outsiders come in and try to insert themselves into our health care system. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It brings capital, it brings innovation. But we want protection and we have protection now.”
Healey, who has faced critical coverage for her administration’s oversight of Steward Health Care, said the state spent most of the last year working to get the company out of Massachusetts.
“We need to prevent that from happening again, and this law will subject for-profit providers to the same transparency rules as everyone else,” Healey said.
The prescription drug costs bill requires insurance companies to eliminate cost-sharing requirements for one generic drug and to cap co-payments on one brand-name drug at $25 per 30-day supply for diabetes, asthma, and some heart conditions, according to Healey’s office.
The measure also includes language to prevent consumers from being charged a copay if it would be cheaper for them to purchase a drug without using their insurance and requires continuity of coverage for new members’ existing prescriptions when they switch to a new plan, Healey’s office said.
Senate President Karen Spilka, who has said she plans to pursue another health care bill this session focused on primary care delivery, said the bills Healey signed put “patients before profit in Massachusetts.”
“We are lowering the cost, in so many cases, of out-of-pocket costs for asthma, diabetes, and certain chronic heart disease drugs in Massachusetts — first in the nation to be doing this. We are reining in the costs of PBMs, pharmacy benefit manager,” Spilka said. “We are reining that in because they have increased drug costs for far too long. No resident should be forced to choose between prescription medication and putting their food on the table or a roof over their head.”
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