The Massachusetts hospital landscape has developed into a system of the haves and the have nots. It is a system where the largest providers have been able to command higher reimbursements from public and private insurers than their smaller hospital kin. It has created an ever-widening disparity in cost between Boston teaching hospitals and the rest of the state. After the public loudly complained about its health insurance rates going up 10 percent or more a year, lawmakers finally agreed the system had to be overhauled. The state's cost containment law focuses mostly on how to force the state's hospital groups to lower their costs, and to provide equity in insurance reimbursements statewide.
