Healthcare industry run amok

THE GLOBE raised an important issue on unnecessary healthcare costs being passed on to employers and consumers because of a building boom in recent years by our so-called nonprofit hospitals ("We need docs, not blocks," Editorial, Oct. 7). Recent regulatory changes should help prevent the expansions in the future, but unfortunately the horse is out of the barn in many areas of the state.

In nearly any other competitive or for-profit industry, facility expansions would have to be justified as a necessary and recoverable investment to business owners and shareholders before a shovel is put in the ground. But in our largely unregulated healthcare industry, the costs of such expansions are passed on to the consumers and the taxpayers in the form of higher health insurance premiums. Existing facilities of other providers, our state's population loss, and the overall cost seem to have no bearing on preventing these expansion plans.

We need our insurers and the state to hold the line on the incredible wealth shift we have seen in recent years from consumers to "big healthcare." Payments for unnecessary, duplicative, and costly expansions should not be borne by employers, their employees, and taxpayers. Reimbursements for services, yes, but for bad investments, no.
JON B. HURST, President
Retailers Association of Massachusetts, Boston