Your tax dollars standing around idle

I got a couple emails from people asking about a story in the Star Bulletin about HMSA jacking up its large employer premiums more than 9% this year. Yeah, I can explain that. Two things are going on. One is normal and understandable, but the other one should anger you. The normal and understandable thing is that HMSA regularly, but not annually, negotiates with doctors and hospitals on what it will pay them for specific services. As you might guess, these fees go the same direction as everything else -- up. The higher fees represent, to put it simply, however much inflation there has been since the last negotiation. But that's not all they represent. The second thing that is going on would come under the heading of your tax dollars standing about smoking cigarettes instead of helping keep the nation healthy. The federal government determines how much Medicare-Medicaid pays for the services that doctors and hospitals provide. But instead of negotiating a fair rate like private sector insurers do, it just announces what it will pay. Years ago it began to pay less than the actual cost. At first it wasn't that big a deal. Doctors and hospitals easily made up the difference by slightly overcharging private sector insurers. There was some squawking but everything worked out in the end. Over the years, however, the gap has steadily widened. Now private sector insurers like HMSA are heavily subsidizing Medicare-Medicaid. It's like a hidden tax on businesses. It represents incompetence and sloth on the part of federal bureaucrats and members of Congress. And the bigger the gap gets, the harder it becomes for Congress or any administration of any political stripe to suck it up and fix what's broken.