Health-care costs cause monetary pain

The spiraling cost of health care took center stage in some recent developments with implications for the state’s insurance-premium customers.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced Friday that its nearly 1.3 million Massachusetts clients will pay higher premiums, deductibles and coinsurance amounts for Medicare in 2022.

At the same time on Beacon Hill, the Committee on Health Care Financing took the pulse of several pending bills, including one by the House speaker that would give the Health Policy Commission the authority to investigate the market impact of major hospital expansions.

The standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B enrollees will rise to $170.10 next year, an increase of $21.60, 14.54%, from $148.50 in 2021, while the annual deductible for all Medicare Part B beneficiaries goes up to $233 in 2022, a $30 increase.

The higher costs for Part B, which covers outpatient care and durable equipment, were attributed to rising health-care costs and utilization, the possibility that Medicare might need to cover a high-cost Alzheimer’s drug and congressional action that held down the 2021 premium.

Those collecting Social Security are by now wise to the federal government’s shell game when it comes to benefit additions by subtraction.

News that Social Security benefits would rise by 5.9% next year should have been met with the realization that a chunk of that gain would be offset by an increase in Medicare premiums.

For instance, though Social Security hasn’t disclosed the exact 2022 individual disbursements, someone now collecting $1,000 a month could see a nominal increase of about $59.

Thanks to that Part B premium hike, that monthly Social Security boost drops to about $38 — just an 3.8% increase.

And speaking of higher costs, the deductible — outof-pocket expense — for Medicare A, which covers inpatient hospital, skilled nursing facility, hospice and inpatient rehabilitation care, goes up $72, from $1,484 to $1,556, in 2022, a 4.85% increase.

In the state Legislature, House Speaker Ronald Mariano’s proposed hospital bill targets what he described as a trend by highreimbursement providers like Massachusetts General Brigham to open satellite facilities in suburban locations that compete with smaller community hospitals for privately insured patients, which leaves community hospitals with a greater share of patients on Medicare and Medicaid.

The redrafted proposal would require any provider seeking a determination of need from the Department of Public Health for an expansion project to include a letter of support from the CEO or board chair of an existing independent community hospital in the proposed expansion area, unless the project’s a joint venture.

The speaker is right to view with a jaundiced eye potential inroads by big Boston medical conglomerates and teaching hospitals into areas operated by already struggling community hospitals.

This comes as Gov. Charlie Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey addressed escalating health costs at the Health Policy Commission’s annual conference.

Health-care spending in Massachusetts exceeded an annual target set under a 2012 cost-control law for the second straight year in 2019, climbing 4.3%.

With time running out on this formal legislative session, the speaker’s bill — and others aimed at reining in health-care costs — must wait until 2022.

Until then, we’ll continue to pay for the status quo.