A 2d 'handshake' exists

THE RECENT Spotlight Team article shows how large corporations can use market power to drive up prices and stifle competition. The unfettered market may not be the solution to the soaring healthcare costs that are wreaking havoc with family, business, and government budgets.

A second Partners/Blue Cross Blue Shield "handshake" also deserves the attention of the Spotlight Team. It may well change national healthcare history.

In 2005, the Globe reported that Partners HealthCare and Blue Cross Blue Shield formed an alliance putting $2 million on the table to push major healthcare legislation.

That handshake produced Massachusetts' 2006 healthcare expansion, which subsidized coverage for low-income residents, required everyone else to buy private insurance at the market rate, and raised Medicaid payments for hospitals. It was all wrapped up in a promise of affordable coverage for almost everyone.

More than 400,000 newly insured Bay Staters point to a partial success. The rest of us - nearly 6 million strong - are still waiting after two years of double-digit premium hikes for the taming of skyrocketing healthcare costs.

If the Spotlight Team's analysis of the first handshake predicts the future, we may be waiting a very long time.

BARBARA WATERS ROOP
Cochairwoman
Health Care for Massachusetts
Boston