Adele Ferguson

THERE’S NOTHING so aggravating to the average taxpayer as learning that someone in high places slipped something over on you that benefited that person or his constituency at the expense of everybody else.

Well, here we go again. The someone this time is Secretary of State John Kerry, although he was only a senator from Massachusetts when he did it. What he did was slip something into the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, that is resulting in millions of dollars for hospitals in his state, millions that will be deducted from what hospitals in the other states would receive.

Here’s how this little “sweetheart deal’ worked, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel.

Before Obamacare passed, money dispensed by Medicare to hospitals to pay wages of doctors and staff was done by allocating a pot of money to each state to divvy among its hospitals. States had to follow rules in handing out the funds, in particular a requirement that states urban hospitals be reimbursed for wages at least at the level of state rural hospitals.

NOW DO YOU get that? What a state pays doctors and staff in its hospitals out in the country must be matched or exceeded by what it pays those in the cities.

So along comes Sen. Kerry to change the rules without any public notice. He slipped a provision into the Obama health law to require that Medicare wage reimbursements come instead from a national pool of money. “The Kerry notice kickback didn’t get much notice,” says the WSJ, “since it was cloaked in technicality and never specifically mentioned Massachusetts. But the senator knew exactly what he was doing.”

It so happens that there is only one rural hospital in all of Massachusetts, “a tiny facility on the tiny playground of the super rich, Nantucket.” Under the new rule, thanks to Sen. Kerry, all 81 urban hospitals in that state still must pay the same as tiny Nantucket except the dramatically inflated wages will be sucked out of a national pool, leaving considerably less for the rest of the states. “Clever Mr. Kerry,” says the WSJ.

THE CHANGE has allowed Massachusetts to raise its Medicare payout by $257 million, forcing cuts in 40 other states.

The National Rural Health Association and 20 state hospital associations in January sent a panicked letter to President Obama, says the WSJ, noting that Kerry’s manipulation of the program would hand that state $3.5 billion over the next decade at the expense of Medicare beneficiaries everywhere. “What Massachusetts gets comes from everybody else.” said a spokesman.

A couple of senators introduced legislation to kill the Kerry fleecing but it was non-binding so another effort is being made for a binding vote. An Illinois senator, who said his state has already lost $60 million, said “It’s a zero sum game that reinforces our worst fears about how the health care law was drafted. Back room negotiations, secret deals and now this long eon on Medicare reimbursement that is already doing real damage to Illinois hospitals.”

The revolt will spread, says the WSJ, with even vulnerable Democrats willing to “fix” or “improve” this “wildly unpopular health law that they supported.”

Meanwhile, where is Sen. Kerry? Oh, he’s all over the world playing president in the absence of the man elected to same who is happier taking vacations, recreation time and conducting fund raisers. Who’s minding the store?

Obviously, nobody.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)