IN THEIR May 12 op-ed “Health care fails small businesses,’’ Jim Stergios and Amy Lischko accurately identify that the Commonwealth Connector has backed away from trying to help small businesses who are already providing benefits. It seems it’s not the authority’s mission anymore.
My firm participated in the Connector’s small business program. We enrolled in April 2009, and the program gave us choices of plans we could not get elsewhere. We disenrolled the following April because of a 31 percent rate increase. The same plan was available from a broker for 9 percentage points less.
The result is that we changed plans three times in less than three years.
The federal Affordable Care Act will help Massachusetts by increasing competition through multistate health plans, enabling co-ops and introducing rules to standardize transactions and reduce administrative costs. But to achieve true cost control, we need to make pricing more transparent and give consumers incentives to be selective. Look at the games providers have to play with prevailing charges and discounts. Your primary care office staff can’t tell you what a flu shot costs, much less a more complex procedure. Then look at the hospital charges on your last explanation of benefits. It is no wonder costs of care keep rising; the only ones we really see or can understand are the monthly premiums.
Richard H. Dougherty
Chief executive
DMA Health Strategies
Lexington 
