Health-care leaders: Ruling no cure for spiraling costs [View all]

[IamK]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018571663_healthcarelocalfolo01m.html

In Washington state, health-care leaders weren't waiting around for the Affordable Care Act to make health care affordable. With a private-market approach now enshrined in law, some warn that if commercial insurers, hospitals and doctors don't work together to change what all agree is an unsustainable system, costs could force a government-run alternative.


In coming years, patients in Washington state were going to see changes in health care — with or without the federal Affordable Care Act, now the law of the land.

Long before the bitter debate over the federal law, most of which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, local health-care leaders realized spiraling costs were putting health care out of reach for many businesses and individuals, as well as threatening the spending power of local governments. Health-care costs now consume nearly a third of the state budget in Washington.

Insurance based on employment — you could lose it if you're too sick to work — and the fee-for-service system — paying doctors and hospitals for doing more stuff, even if it's the wrong stuff — have created incentives that push in all the wrong directions, many say.