The Nashua Telegraph comes out against Senator Maggie Hassan’s hospital price control bill.

The state Senate legislation introduced by Senate Majority Leader Maggie Hassan seeks to standardize the rates that the state’s 26 hospitals can charge. Different patients pay different prices depending on whether they are insured, and if they are, what discount their insurance company has negotiated.

According to an Associated Press article on Hassan’s bill, hospitals would submit information to the commission on their costs, including the numbers of uninsured and Medicaid clients served. The commission would then set a rate that took into account a profit margin needed to keep the hospital solvent.

That may sound reasonable, but it puts too much of the burden on hospitals and no pressure on insurance companies or other health care providers. While hospital rates have gone up over the rate of inflation, insurance premiums have gone up even higher.

There’s no guarantee that cost controls imposed on hospitals would have any effect on insurance companies, other than to enhance their profits. Nor can they guarantee the competition among companies that Hassan hopes for.