Maura Healey's First Legislation – Protecting Health Care Consumers

This week marked an exciting time for me, my legislative agenda and, I think, the people of Massachusetts who I know share my concerns about the ever-escalating cost of health care in our state.

I was on Beacon Hill with House Majority Leader Ron Mariano from Quincy to file my first piece of legislation as Attorney General, a bill we think will significantly move the needle on the number one issue facing health care consumers – cost.

This is a critical time in Massachusetts health care. We have the highest quality care in the world and we continue to lead the nation in ensuring everyone has access to care. We’ve taken several important steps in addressing costs but more needs to be done to address that critical third leg of the stool.

While increased consolidation of providers in some instances may provide benefits like increased efficiencies and improved quality, we also know that many mergers often lead to increased market clout and higher costs.

Our state’s Health Policy Commission has been out front in addressing mergers that might drive up costs. The HPC’s reports have shined a bright light on these mergers and enhanced the ability of our office to block mergers which will hurt the marketplace.

Our bill seeks to make a good system better by giving more teeth to any referral sent by the HPC to the Attorney General’s Office. Specifically, the bill says an HPC cost or market referral is considered evidence of a violation of the Consumer Protection Act and allows us to go before a judge to stop mergers that might harm consumers.

This bill will help families and seniors who have seen the costs of health care cripple their budgets, help businesses who see health care costs eating up the bottom line and help taxpayers who know health care costs are the greatest buster of state and community budgets – by far.

Maintaining health care quality and access while controlling costs is a significant challenge. But it’s one we’re up to and we must tackle. This bill helps us get there.

I look forward to working with stakeholders, Leader Mariano, Speaker DeLeo, Senate President Rosenberg, the entire Legislature and Governor Baker to make it law. I hope you’ll join me in making sure it happens by sharing your support in your networks, with legislators and on social media.

This is one piece of our aggressive agenda and you’ll be hearing more about efforts around health care, energy, the environment, community engagement, fighting opiates and ensuring equality in the coming months. But the first bill is important to me – and to the people of our state.

Thanks for staying in touch on our agenda. We can’t do any of this without you.

All the best,

Maura