Health Care

32BJ Health Fund conference tackles uncontrolled hospital pricing

The fall event gathered legislators, national experts and healthcare leaders.

Attendees at the 32BJ Fund's fall conference, “Hospital Prices: the Policy and the Practical.”

Attendees at the 32BJ Fund's fall conference, “Hospital Prices: the Policy and the Practical.” Courtesy of 32BJ

Sponsored Content

32BJ Health Fund held its fall conference to address the challenges of increased hospital pricing and brought to light data-backed solutions endorsed by legislators and national policy experts. 

The event, titled ““Hospital Prices: the Policy and the Practical,” included key speakers Kyle Bragg, president of the 32BJ SEIU Union, Cora Opsahl, director of the 32BJ Health Fund and Dave Chase, founder and co-leader of Health Rosetta, with nonprofit leaders, policy experts and legislators in attendance. 

32BJ Health Fund is a multiemployer fund that serves over 200,000 union members and their families, jointly governed by both the union and its employers representing over 5,000 employers who contribute to the fund. With members in over 11 different states, the Health Fund represents the needs of essential workers who include, property maintenance workers, security officers, window cleaners, building engineers, school and food service workers, and most recently airport workers who have been included to the 32BJ SEIU union.

“We really look at the fund as our responsibility to ensure our members have high quality benefits at an affordable cost,” said Opsahl. “We have no premium sharing and no deductibles for in-network care, which means 100% of the health benefits are paid for by the employers. We believe it's the responsibility of the health fund to ensure the affordability of the benefit and not on the backs of our members.” 

Opsahl highlighted the distressing impacts of increased hospital pricing, stating that hospital services have grown over 80% since 2009 in comparison to drug prices which have grown slightly less than 30%. “Since 2004, healthcare has risen from 17% of total compensation to 37% of total compensation. And during that same time period, wages have gone up 54%, but health care costs have increased a whopping 230%. To put that into a real amount – over the past 10 years, our members could have had $5,000 more in annual wages, had healthcare spending risen at just the same rate as inflation,” Opsahl said.

To increase hospital accountability and counteract uncontrolled pricing, Opsahl proposes the use of new data collection tools such as RAND, NASHP and Turquoise, to highlight wasteful hospital spending practices and help identify potential savings. 

“The data is at the core of what we do. We receive all of our claims data and we leverage that data for our benefit and plan design decisions. It includes how we're spending our health care dollars, what is the cost of the funds for our plan design changes and the basis for where we go in the future,” she said.

Opsahl further stressed the importance of state and municipality intervention to systematically address high hospital prices and hospital behavior. 

Chase, who delivered the keynote speech, highlighted successful examples in states such as Florida, Alaska and Montana with successful hospital pricing intervention to emphasize the reestablishment of “health sovereignty” among communities. 

“It's very clear, there is a better way. We have seen it succeed in every part of the country, rural and urban settings with small and large employers in the public and private sector. It's just a matter of will, but it's absolutely doable,” said Chase. “The first piece of it is mindset, the second step is to optimize planning and structure.” 

Chase emphasized the importance of codifying accurate data and navigating through federal regulating frameworks such as ERISA, to identify hidden costs and inefficiencies: 

“We found that over 95% of the plant owners, the employers, the unions never hired an ERISA attorney, which is the regulating framework. They don't look at the agreements. That is actually what codifies a trillion and a half dollars in waste. That is why the worst result that we have is a 20% absolute reduction in spending. We swept those contracts and the abuse that is making those contractors beyond would be unacceptable in any other realm.” 

While the COVID-19 pandemic brought an onslaught of demand for increased hospitalization, with some communities faring worse than others due to lack of available medical resources, Chase insisted on changing conventional perspectives on traditional hospitalization, by opting for open source hospitalization.

“I would challenge you to look at every hospitalization as a failure. There is administrative bloat, and there is overtreatment and inappropriate care. There are some exceptions, but 60% of hospitalizations are preventable, if you go far enough, upstream by 90%. And there needs to be radical transparency and either bill opportunities. There [is progress] when people outsource the care, yet the current norms prevent a lot of this from happening,” said Chase.

Among conference attendees at 32BJ’s Manhattan headquarters, state Sen. Jessica Ramos, whose district includes 32BJ union members, pointed out the flaws in hospital pricing. 

“This room is filled with national policy experts and people who can really help us as legislators do our best to overhaul a system that isn't working,” she said. “I'm hoping that we arrive at some solution oriented strategies which always helps inform our work as legislators.” 

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, chairman of the Committee on Health, also in attendance, proposed a move to a single-payer system to address rising hospital prices and overall medical fees. “Pushing towards a single payer system would actually help resolve many if not all of the issues that we're talking about. Because another thing that we did not mention was insurance. And that's also something that we certainly need to talk about.” 

Legislators at the conference appeared poised to act on predatory hospital pricing. New York City Council Member Julie Menin along with Council Member Lynn Schulman said they had introduced a new legislative package which would lead to the creation of an Office of hospital Accountability. 

“The [office of hospital accountability] would mandate that the hospitals have to disclose their pricing, there would be comparison charts, there would be grades as to how transparent these hospitals are, there would be reporting mechanisms going to the state attorney general who can then do enforcement actions,” said Menin. 

As New York City spends nearly $9.5 billion on health care costs, a figure amounting to 10% of the city’s $1 billion budget, Menin urges that the current spending practices are unsustainable: 

“When you think about other industries, do people not get any pricing information, or send patients into hospitals at their most vulnerable time with absolutely no information about what they're going to be charged, it's unconscionable, and this legislative package would end that practice.” 

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.