PROVIDENCE – The Convenient Care Association, an industry group representing companies and health care systems such as CVS Health Corp.’s Minute Clinic, the Walgreen Co.’s Walgreen’s Health Clinic, Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer Inc. has called upon Massachusetts lawmakers to reject an 8.75 percent tax on walk-in health clinics, in a letter to lawmakers sent Tuesday.
The tax would include retail clinics, urgent care clinics and surgical centers.
The CAA argued that the tax, which is part of a health care bill being considered by a conference committee of members from the Massachusetts House and Senate, would strain access to health care in a state already facing a shortage of primary care providers.
The bill is called “An Act establishing the Honorable Peter V. Kocot Act to enhance access to high quality, affordable and transparent healthcare in the Commonwealth.”
The CAA also argued that the unintended consequence of the bill would be to increase unnecessary emergency room visits, inflate prices for patients and that the bill could exasperate gaps in health care that already exist in the state.
“Especially when affordable and accessible care is hard to reach, walk‐in clinics serve a critical need for families in the Commonwealth, bringing convenient, high‐quality, lower‐cost health care closer to the community and offer services that not only keep families healthy, but save them time and money,” said Tine Hansen‐Turton, executive director of the Convenient Care Association. “An 8.75 percent tax would exacerbate the Commonwealth’s health care access problems and make health care services more costly by adding millions of dollars in new expenses to be borne by consumers, walk‐in health clinics, employers and payors.”
The 8.75 percent tax would exempt any percentage of the total dollar amount taxed for assessed charges for public payers and would only apply to commercial payers.
The bill is sponsored by Massachusetts Rep. Jeffrey Roy, D-Norfolk.
Chris Bergenheim is the PBN web editor.
