Jindal affirmed into Act
222 of 2013 SB 44 by state Sen. Ben
Nevers. The law allows the city of Bogalusa to impose as high as a six
percent “provider fee” onto delivery of health care services by a hospital,
which applies to just one entity, Bogalusa Medical Center. The intent is for
the state to be able to use this money as a basis to capture Medicaid matching
funds, a large portion of the business of the state-owned hospital that soon
will be contracted out for running likely to a religious nonprofit entity. This
would occur only after approval by Bogalusa voters, presumably at the regular
2014 election date.
The law regards this surcharge onto gross receipts as a “fee” because it
is reasonably related to the purpose it funds and given other language in the
law that states “No hospital … shall pass on the cost of the provider fee or
include the provider fee as an itemized and separately listed amount on any
statement sent to any patient, responsible party, insurer, or self-insured
employer program.” Further, “Any bill or statement sent to a patient,
responsible party, insurer, or self-insured employer program after the initial
effective date of this Subsection shall contain a statement that, ‘This bill
does not contain any cost of the provider fee levied by the city of Bogalusa’.”
Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean the operator deliberately will forgo finding
extra revenues in order to run at a loss caused by an increase of six percent
in the cost of doing business, if they want to stay in business – especially when
the latest
annual data showed the facility lost 7.5 percent on revenues. The look-in
by the hospitalist, every aspirin popped, the daily room rate, all and more will
inch up in price disguised as the regular cost of business, not a separate line
item and regardless of the statement. That about half
of revenues already come from Medicaid and another 16 percent from Medicare
doesn’t mean for the other third won’t find a way to get passed on to consumers.
That means out of pocket costs go up and insurers raise rates to absorb
the higher charges, so not just patients there but all health care insured in
the state pay. It’s nothing more than subterfuge harkening back to the
disastrous experiment that lasted all of three months by Gov. Kathleen Blanco who rammed
the same idea in law, only to see it blow up quickly when its cost-shifting
nature became all too obvious in the wake of the hurricane disasters of 2005.
But the worst may be yet to come. HB
532 by House Speaker Chuck Kleckley,
also passed this session, creates the potential to spread (it will require
future enabling legislation) the concept statewide that also will require a
vote of the (state’s) people in order to enact it (into the Constitution, which
would take precedence over Act 222 yet courtesy of the act already have the enabling
legislation in place). This extra revenue raised by government will be passed
on to all but the state’s indigent regardless of whether they are admitted to a
hospital of any kind.
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