House Passes Bill to Balance Health Care and Protect Hospitals

BOSTON – Thursday, November 18, 2021 – Representative Linsky (D-Natick) joined his colleagues in passing H.1260, An Act enhancing the market review process by a vote of 158-1. To protect community hospitals, this bill promotes a more balanced health care market by strengthening the regulatory processes for health care expansions. The legislation creates a more rigorous review to ensure that when large hospital systems expand, they are not infringing on community hospital markets and raising health care costs for patients. It also requires the ongoing upkeep of a health resource inventory, which will give regulators a better understanding of the Commonwealth’s existing health care resources to inform these review processes and future reform efforts.

“I was proud to join my colleagues to pass House Bill 1260. This bill will go a long way in protecting and enhancing our community hospitals” said Representative Linsky. “I want to thank Speaker Mariano, Representative Donato and the rest of my colleagues in the House for their hard work to make sure patients are the number one priority of the health care system here in the Commonwealth.”

The legislation passed continues the House’s commitment to health care as demonstrated in Massachusetts’ health care reform law of 2006 and of the landmark cost containment law of 2012. Community hospitals operate on thin margins and with the constant possibility of closure. H.1260 limits unchecked growth of hospital chains, better suiting community hospitals to survive and ensuring continued competition in the health care market.

Specifically H.1260:

· Expands and strengthens the Health Policy Commission’s (HPC) material change notice (MCN) process to include a broader range of transactions and give cost and market impact reviews (CMIRs) more weight in the Determination of Need (DoN) & Attorney General (AGO) proceedings

· Requires the Department of Public Health (DPH) to consider additional sources of information, including CMIRs and Center for Health Information & Analysis (CHIA) data, as part of the DoN process

· Re-establishes a health planning council that will assist DPH in maintaining an inventory of health care resources to inform the MCN process and better assess the appropriateness of DoN applications

· Protects independent community hospitals’ markets and gives hospitals another tool to halt DoN proceedings should a proposed project encroach on their primary service area

The bill now goes to the Senate.

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