Capitol Weekly Podcast: Carmela Coyle

Those on all sides of the health care debate agree on one thing: health care costs continue to rise in California and across the country.

Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, sat down with Capitol Weekly’s John Howard and Tim Foster to talk about ways to cut health care costs, including a new experiment in Maryland that seeks to replace per-patient payments with a single annual payment designed to focus on keeping patients healthier.

We also chat about one of the most important bills of the year, AB 3087 by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, that would set up a government-sanctioned commission to establish uniform standard pricing throughout California. The legislation has drawn withering criticism from big players in the health care industry — including doctors, dentists, insurers and the CHA’s own Coyle, who says the proposal “will simply collapse our health care system.”

Click here to listen ….