Romneycare's, er, Obamacare’s Sweetheart Deal for Massachusetts

• Michael F. Cannon 

• A bunch of rural hospitals are upset about a provision ofObamacare that benefits Massachusetts above all other states. Forgive the bureaucratese, but you really have to read the Medicare Price Control Payment Advisory Commission’s description to appreciate the situation:

  Among the proposed wage index reclassifications or exceptions granted to hospitals for FY2012, the rural floor exception triggered in the state of Massachusetts will have a large impact on hospital payments. Beginning in FY 2012, the conversion of Nantucket Cottage Hospital from a critical access hospital to an IPPS hospital will trigger the rural floor wage index exception for the 60 urban hospitals in the state of Massachusetts, increasing wage indexes for these hospitals from an average of 1.16 in FY2011 to 1.35 in FY2012. Nantucket Cottage Hospital is a rural island hospital, which has 15 inpatient beds and serves approximately 150 Medicare inpatients per year. This hospital will become the only rural IPPS hospital in the state of Massachusetts. As a result of this change in one small hospital’s status, and the subsequent change in the wage index, payment rates for urban hospitals in Massachusetts will increase by 8 percent, or by more than $200 million in FY 2012. These extra payments will be made budget neutral at the national level, and therefore all hospitals—including rural hospitals—will absorb the financial loss.

  
  Read more: http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/michaelfcannon/2012/01/22/romneycares_er_obamacares_sweetheart_deal_for_massachusetts