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News.com.au
12-05-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
Victoria faces $5.4bn choice between level crossing removals and almost 20,000 social housing builds
The Allan government is facing a $5.4bn choice between 25 level crossing removals and an almost 20,000 home building surge to help tackle the state's affordable housing crisis. It comes as the Victorian Housing Peaks Alliance has warned Victoria is 80,000 social homes short of what is needed for the next decade, and the state has the lowest proportion of social housing in Australia. As treasury prepares the state's 2025-2026 budget for next week, the Community Housing Industry Association as well as the powerful Property Council of Australia, are calling for level crossing removal funds to be repurposed to build social housing. CHIA has calculated redeploying the funds would allow for the creation of 17,823 additional social homes over the next decade, while putting $6bn into the state's Social Housing Growth Fund would boost that number to almost 20,000. CHIA chief executive Sarah Toohey said it was time for the Allan government to prioritise the state's 'very pressing and urgent housing crisis'. 'The level crossing removals have done amazing things where they have been through, and there's more public realm around the stations, but after 85 of them it's diminishing returns,' Ms Toohey said. 'We have 55,000 households waiting for social housing right now, they are in a range of circumstances — and some are sleeping on couches and in cars and sleeping rough because they can't get a social housing space.' While early changes to the level crossing program had undoubtedly saved lives, Ms Toohey said it was known that homelessness caused early death and that there were families enduring domestic violence because they had nowhere else to go to. Ms Toohey said after years of asking the government for more social housing funding, the response had always been 'how do we pay for it'. 'So we have done the hard work of looking through the budget and finding what we can reprioritise,' she said. The Victorian Housing Peaks Alliance data shows just 3.1 per cent of the state's housing supply is social housing, compared to a 4.5 per cent national average. Victorian Council of Social Services chief executive Juanita Pope said social housing was foundational for people being able to live a good life. 'Strong, sustained investment in growing public housing and community housing should be the number one infrastructure priority for this state,' Ms Pope said. 'It's the key to solving our housing crisis and other big societal challenges.' Property Council of Australia Victorian executive director Cath Evans backed the proposal, describing the state's housing crisis as in need of urgent action. 'A redirection of funds that would kickstart the rollout of 20,000 new social housing homes would offer a much-needed boost to Victoria's supply and ensure more vulnerable members of our community have a place to call home,' Ms Evans said. 'While infrastructure projects are essential to the fabric of a growing city, the government must prioritise housing if we are to continue to grow as Australia's soon-to-be largest and most prosperous state.' She added that reductions to taxes on foreign investment and more financial support for first-home buyers could also assist with establishing more housing availability for tenants and to help keep property prices from escalating and pushing more people into needing social or community housing spaces. Common Equity Housing Limited chief executive Liz Thomas said the federal election result had been a 'clear signal people want housing to be a priority', and warned that waiting lists would continue to grow if social housing wasn't made a priority. A driving force behind co-operative housing formats, where struggling families and individuals are given a say in how their complex is managed, as well as secure, long-term residency, Ms Thomas said they could be virtually self funding once established. Ms Thomas said most of the households moving into her co-op residences were couples or single parents with two kids — and not just people on government payments. 'They are hospitality workers, retail workers, independent retirees who don't qualify for public housing,' she said. Co-op resident and single mum Lucy Bowen is studying to become a speech pathologist to better provide for her young family. But with her only alternative to community housing being living with her mother and brother in a three-bedroom home, said it was time to prioritise housing. 'I feel so secure and know that my children are living in a place that is safe, and that takes the stress off,' Ms Bowen said. 'And it's housing that's most important. Everyone needs safe and secure housing, especially children.' Additional CHIA budget asks, which could all be made revenue neutral, include transferring general lease stock to the community housing sector, improving lending requirements for community housing organisations and trialling a Community Housing Sector Innovation Fund to support entrepreneurs seeking to increase social housing supply.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Health care cost surge adds to Mass. affordability woes
BOSTON (SHNS) – Health care costs in Massachusetts surged at 'unsustainable' levels in 2023, adding more pressure to already-strained household budgets, according to new state data. Total health care expenditures per capita grew to $11,153 from 2022 to 2023, an 8.6% leap that was the second-largest increase since officials began tracking the annual change a decade earlier, the Center for Health Information and Analysis reported Wednesday. The 2023 rate was more than double the 3.6% 'benchmark' that policymakers set as the goal for keeping health care cost growth within a reasonable range. That benchmark is up for debate at a hearing on Thursday. 'For 2023, we are seeing unsustainable cost growth trends persist, putting increasing pressure on residents, employers, and the system as a whole, emphasizing the urgent need for bold and systemic solutions,' said CHIA Executive Director Lauren Peters. The growth rate in 2023 trailed only the 9% increase from 2020 to 2021, when health care spending rebounded after plummeting during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2021 to 2022, total health care spending per capita grew 5.8%. At the time, that was the second-highest rate behind the pandemic-impacted outlier. The sharp change will increase pressure on Beacon Hill to rein in health care costs, especially as affordability more broadly — from housing prices to energy bills — remains a central concern. During a series of hearings about health care costs earlier this year, before CHIA published its 2023 data, officials warned about pocketbook impacts from rising health insurance costs. Matthew Veno, executive director of Group Insurance Commission, which oversees insurance for 460,000 state employees and retirees, said the GIC has seen 'pretty significant increases' in premiums in recent years. 'So when we are facing rising pressures on affordability, rising underlying costs of health care, that has a significant burden on the state budget,' he said. 'And whenever we talk about health care, we should always talk in terms of tradeoffs. The dollars that we spend to provide essentially the same benefit going forward inhibits our ability to make progress in other areas, most notably health equity, behavioral health, but also to relieve the pressure as much as we can on our members who pay a significant portion of their premium, but also on the state budget.' CHIA said pharmacy spending and new MassHealth supplemental payments to hospitals drove growth in 2023. Net of rebates, pharmacy spending increased $1 billion or 10% year over year, and MassHealth administered about $1.5 billion in new payments to hospitals designed to support quality and health equity efforts, the report said. But the effects spilled down to individual patients, too. Between 2021 and 2023, premiums grew 12.1% and health insurance member cost-sharing grew 12.9%, both higher than the 9.7% statewide increase in wages and salaries over the same span, according to CHIA. A bit more than two in five Massachusetts residents reported facing a health care affordability issue in the past 12 months, and the rate was even higher among certain demographic groups such as Hispanic residents (58.2%) and non-Hispanic Black residents (48.7%), CHIA said. Hospital finances improved somewhat from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2023, the latest full budget cycle covered by CHIA's new report, while remaining tight. Across the state, the median acute hospital operating margin grew from -1.3% in hospital fiscal 2022 to 0.2% in hospital fiscal 2023. Just more than half of acute care hospitals reported positive operating margins in HFY 2023, CHIA said. State analysts, watchdogs and lawmakers will discuss the new CHIA data at a hearing Thursday, where the Health Policy Commission and the Legislature's Health Care Financing Committee will consider adjusting the cost growth benchmark moving forward. In January, Veno said the GIC was 'experiencing significant budget shortfalls' midway through fiscal 2025, and was more than $100 million over budget. 'This is the largest variance that we've seen in at least a decade, and this is consistent across all of our plans, and is driven primarily by rising provider prices and a couple of other topics,' he said. He added, 'We don't know where this is going to head. My concern is that it is a persistent and steady trend going forward.' Under questioning from Insurance Commissioner Michael Caljouw, Veno later added, 'We're looking at a 10 and a half percent increase for fiscal '26.' Veno identified medical innovation, increased inpatient care utilization and drug prices, including a surge in weight loss drugs, as among the factors driving up prices. He cited a 'steady trend' of 10% increases in pharmacy benefit costs, and projected a 14% increase in the 'active spend' on pharmacy benefits at the GIC for fiscal 2026, which begins July 1. Health care providers are demanding higher prices in negotiations with insurers, Veno said. He gave the example of a provider demanding a 50% increase in rates over three years. 'It was a hard first position,' he said. 'It was not simply expanding the field of negotiation. And what we've also seen is a willingness on the providers to terminate contracts if they don't get the rate increases that they're seeking.' 'I would say, over the last year, it's been relatively non-stop that these rate negotiations have gotten extremely contentious,' Veno added. 'We frequently see and hear about double digit increased demands from providers and a very aggressive posture.' Caljouw, who has been hosting the health care cost sessions, said Massachusetts was at a 'uniquely challenging moment.' 'It's certainly a national issue in terms of scope, but the regional impacts and the impacts directly on individual purchasers, whether they're businesses or individuals, is real and felt,' Caljouw said in January. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
12-03-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
Spending on Massachusetts health care has grown more than twice as fast as state hoped, new report shows
Advertisement Lauren Peters, CHIA's executive director, expressed alarm about the soaring spending. With the 8.6 percent increase, health care spending in Massachusetts totaled $11,153 per resident. 'For 2023, we are seeing unsustainable cost growth trends persist, putting increasing pressure on residents, employers, and the system as a whole, emphasizing the urgent need for bold and systemic solutions,' Peters said in a statement. Peters is expected to discuss the analysis on Thursday at a meeting of the state Health Policy Commission and the Legislature's Joint Committee on Health Care Financing. The report covers a variety of health care expenditures, including prescription drugs, outpatient and inpatient treatment at hospitals, and physician visits. Prescription drugs, along with new MassHealth supplemental payments, spurred the growth in spending, according to the report. Total spending on medicines increased by $1 billion, while MassHealth — the Medicaid program in Massachusetts — made $1.5 billion in new incentive payments to hospitals that met certain standards for quality and equity. Spending on prescription drugs represented the largest share of overall health care expenditures and increased by 11.6 percent over 2022, to $15.2 billion, the report stated. The next-largest category was outpatient care at hospitals, which totaled $14 billion, an increase of 8.3 percent over the previous year. Pricey blockbuster weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound are believed to have contributed to increased spending on prescription medicines. The impact will likely prove bigger when CHIA does its report for 2024, given that Advertisement While the affordability of health care overall was a pervasive issue in Massachusetts, with 41.3 percent of residents struggling to pay for treatment, the burden was greater for Hispanic residents (58.2 percent had difficulty affording it) and for non-Hispanic Black residents (48.7 percent had trouble affording it), said the report. David Seltz, executive director of the Health Policy Commission, said health care costs are 'continuing to grow at an alarming pace.' 'Again this year, pharmacy spending was a major driver of cost growth, increasing by $1 billion from the previous year,' he said in a statement. The chief executive of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, which represents more than 1,700 drug and life science companies in the state, challenged the suggestion that rising drug prices were largely to blame for increased health care spending. Ozempic injection pens moved along a conveyor at the Novo Nordisk A/S production facilities in Hillerod, Denmark, in 2023. Carsten Snejbjerg/Bloomberg 'MassBio is currently reviewing the latest cost trends report from CHIA, and we question whether the available data fully captures all factors contributing to the indicated rise in pharmacy spend,' Kendalle Burlin O'Connell, chief executive and president of MassBio, said in a statement. She said her trade group wants 'a more complete picture of the underlying causes of increased costs.' For his part, Steve Walsh, president and chief executive of the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, said the report underscores that the benchmark of 3.6 percent for growth in annual spending is unrealistic. For several years, his group has argued that it should be raised. 'Massachusetts deserves a modernized approach to the benchmark that embraces the real-time needs of today's patients and healthcare providers — one that can account for inflation, labor costs, and the state's actual gross state product,' he said in a statement. Advertisement One expert on health care policy said Massachusetts actually spent far more in 2023 than CHIA calculated. Alan Sager, a professor of health law, policy, and management at the Boston University School of Public Health, said the actual total would be 45 percent higher if CHIA included expenses that the federal government does when calculating how much each state spends. CHIA doesn't include, among other things, worksite health care, workers' compensation health spending, vocational rehab, school health, dental insurance, out-of-pocket spending for treatments not covered by insurers, and spending by several federal agencies, including the Department of Defense. If those expenditures were included, he said, health care spending in Massachusetts would have totaled $113.5 billion in 2023, or about $16,200 per person. 'We spend so much on health care,' said Sager, who sits on a council that guides CHIA's research. 'It's enough to provide the care that works for everyone who needs it. We probably waste up to half the money we spend.' Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at
