You may have read a story in The Boston Globe on December 28th that makes certain claims about Partners HealthCare’s negotiations with Massachusetts health insurance companies eight years ago, and the founding of the organization in 1993. The story incorrectly asserts that our activities have resulted in higher health insurance premium costs unique to Massachusetts.

The story fails to acknowledge certain facts.  We ask that you consider the following:

1.   Since 1993, Partners has made extraordinary progress in improving care for patients.

• Our founding hospitals, Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General continue to rank among the top 10 hospitals nationwide in the US News and World Report, and are the top two independent hospital recipients of NIH funding in the nation.
• We have preserved and strengthened several once struggling community hospitals in order to provide the right care in the right place at the right time.
• We are building an integrated health care delivery system where all primary care physicians use the same electronic medical record, allowing us to coordinate patient care safely and efficiently across our system.
• We have maintained our commitment to serving our most vulnerable residents through $150 million in annual community benefits.

• In the late 1990s, in Massachusetts and throughout the nation, payments from insurance companies lagged far behind the rising cost of care. Partners was receiving rate increases of 0-2% from health insurance companies, while the cost of care was increasing at a rate of 4-6% per year.
• In 1999, when Partners went to Washington with other hospitals to urge Congress to increase Medicare reimbursement following the steep cuts to the program included in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, officials there told us to address the payment-to-cost gap with private insurance companies first.
• As a result of these two factors, in 2000, Partners sought higher reimbursement in order to cover the cost of care, and provide a fair and reasonable margin of 2% to allow for investment in new technology like the electronic medical record and other initiatives designed to improve patient care.  Partners contract strategy was the same for all three insurance companies and was set prior to negotiations. 
• In addition, because Harvard Pilgrim was in receivership, Partners agreed to delay rate increases and purchased four of HPHC’s health centers for $44M, which provided them with much needed cash and helped the company move out of receivership.
• Across the nation, the period marked a change in the pendulum swinging away from insurers and back toward providers nationally, and The Globe reported on this changing national dynamic in 2001.  A December 2008 national report shows that throughout the country, commercial insurance premiums have risen to cover the shortfall in Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals. 

• In September 2007, The Boston Globe reported data from Hewitt Associates showing that premiums in Boston grew 1% LESS than the national trend over the past eight years.  Massachusetts health insurance premiums have been rising at almost the exact national average over the past decade.  Therefore, Partners HealthCare obviously did not disproportionately drive up costs in Massachusetts.
• With respect to overall costs, health care premiums in Massachusetts are only 8% more expensive than the national average while the overall cost of living in Boston is 35% above the national average.

You may see other stories about Partners in The Boston Globe in the coming weeks. We will continue to set the record straight as these stories appear.  To review the errors and omissions from The Globe’s November 16th story on health care cost and premiums, click here.   

We deeply value the important work that goes on every day in our institutions to provide outstanding and nationally recognized patient care, to teach the next generation of physicians and caregivers, to develop research breakthroughs in the understanding and treatment of disease, and to improve the health of our most vulnerable citizens here and around the world.

Sincerely,

James J. Mongan, MD
President and CEO