Nurses union again at war

As if health care — and its financing — in this state isn’t complicated enough, along comes the Massachusetts Nurses Association with yet another attempt to play Robin Hood.

Yes, one of the more militant labor unions in the state is resurrecting its idea to cap operating margins at 8 percent for hospitals with a patient mix of less than 60 percent governmentpayer (Medicaid and Medicare) and put that “excess” into a Medicaid Reimbursement Enhancement Fund to go to hospitals that serve more clients who are poor.

So all those private-pay clients coming from all over the world to go to, say, Mass. General or Dana-Farber or the Baptist, who help the bottom line at those facilities, well, say goodbye to that revenue. That those revenues are usually plowed right back into the newest technologies or capital programs seems not to matter to the MNA.

A second part of the union’s proposed legislation would restrict hospital CEOs from making more than 100 times the salary of the lowest paid worker at the facility, say, the janitor. That such CEOs deal with multimilliondollar budgets and thousands of staffers matters not nearly as much to the nurses union as this effort at grandstanding.

The really offensive part is that a mere three years ago the nurses had threatened to bring such a proposal to the ballot, but halted their effort when the Legislature gave in and passed a bill to establish minimum staffing levels in intensive care units.

Now union officials are once again holding out the possibility of taking their wish-list to the 2018 ballot.

At least this year, lawmakers don’t seem to be buying into their little scheme. Health Care Committee co-chair Sen. James Welch (D-Springfield) told State House News Service that discussion of caps in the health care sector “give people a little bit of uneasiness.” Gee, you think? You’d think health care professionals might focus on getting through these difficult times with a little more collaboration than confrontation.