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An Arm and a Leg
Hospitals are to blame for obscene health-care costs


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In 1994, two eminent Boston hospitals, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, merged. Officials hailed it as a new era for integrated, high-quality care. The state’s secretary of health and human services signed off on the merger without a public hearing, with the blessing of Republican governor William Weld.

The merged hospital entity, called Partners HealthCare, immediately went about raising rates for insurers. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest private insurer, wanted to fight — in 2000, at a gathering of the company’s executives, some suggested refusing to pay the higher fees. But executive Peter Meade delivered a cold slap of reality: “Excuse me, did anyone here save anyone’s life today? We are a successful business up against people that save people’s lives. It’s not a fair fight.”


Pages

Contents
August 5, 2013    |     Volume LXV, No. 14

Articles
Features
  • Face of the lawless bureaucracy.
  • Obama’s end-run around the Senate, and the Constitution.
  • Felix Rodriguez, freedom fighter and patriot.
  • Hospitals are to blame for obscene health-care costs.
Books, Arts & Manners
  • Charles Crawford reviews Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography: From Grantham to the Falklands, by Charles Moore .
  • Daniel Foster reviews The Founding Conservatives: How a Group of Unsung Heroes Saved the American Revolution, by David Lefer.
  • Edward Feser reviews Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism, by Robert P. George.
  • Florence King reviews Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch, by Barbara A. Perry.
  • Ross Douthat reviews Joss Whedon’s film Much Ado About Nothing.
Sections
The Long View  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  
Athwart  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  
Poetry  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  
Happy Warrior  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .