NEWS HEADLINES:
Massachusetts health insurance

Health reform has enhanced Massachusetts business climate, says Georgetown panel

September 17, 2012

Mitt Romney hates his signature achievement as Governor of Massachusetts now, but businesses are finding that health care reform is not only good for employees, its good for business itself. That’s great news for President Obama, who still wildly embraces his implementation of the path Romney once walked. Read more.

Massachusetts insurance company earnings fall as health insurance premiums decline

August 17, 2012

Pressure from health care reforms by the Gov. Deval Patrick administration twinned with free market pressure is cutting profits at insurance companies doing business in Massachusetts. But isn’t this a good thing for consumers? Costs are coming down for Bay Staters to cover their families, and a bigger share of those premium dollars are being used for actual health care.

Massachusetts health insurance costs slow

August 13, 2012

More good news for people in the Bay State — the rise in health insurance premiums is less than half of what the increase was a year ago (2.1 percent vs. 5.5 percent) and is part of a new two-year slowdown in price increases.

This comes as Gov. Deval Patrick signed new legislation to tie the growth in spending on health care to the growth of the state’s economy through 2017, and then a half percent lower.

Massachusetts legislation may save typical family of four $40,000 over next 15 years

August 6, 2012

Governor Deval Patrick has signed new legislation building on the health care reforms the state started in 2006. That original reform, first championed, then denied by Presidential candidate and former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney, has been responsible for extending health insurance coverage to best-in-nation 98 percent of citizens. Deval’s stroke of the pen takes aim at reining in costs, expected to trim $200 billion from the state budget over the next 15 years by ending the fee-for-service model of reimbursing health care providers.

This legislation is expected to save a typical family of four $40,000 over the next decade and a half.

Massachusetts’ health care plan: 6 years later

June 24, 2012

CBS – Six years ago, when Mitt Romney was still governor of Massachusetts, he called his health care reform promising health insurance to all residents of his state “a giant leap forward.” His goal, articulated at the bill signing ceremony at Faneuil Hall on April 12, 2006, was “every citizen with affordable, comprehensive health insurance.” The trigger to achieving that was imposing an individual mandate that requires every citizen of Massachusetts to obtain coverage or face fines. As a result, the state went from 90 percent of its residents insured to 98 percent, the highest rate in the nation.

HHS Awards 10 States With Exchange Establishment Grants

February 22, 2012

Governing.com–A total of $230 million was given to ten states by the federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services. The money will be used to aid the development of health insurance exchanges in those states.

State insurance exchange awarded $11.6 million to adjust to Affordable Care Act

February 22, 2012

The Boston Globe–The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) announced that it will give Massachusetts $11.6 million to help the state make its health insurance exchange compliant with the Affordable Care Act.

Massachusetts companies drop health coverage as insurance costs swell

July 18, 2010

The Boston Globe – As the costs of health insurance rise, some small businesses in Massachusetts have begun terminating health coverage for their employees and encouraging those employees to enroll in state-subsidized coverage. State offices aren’t convinced yet that there’s a trend.

It’s coverage vs. costs in Mass.

June 15, 2010

Politico – Reading the health reform news in Massachusetts last week, you could easily see the glass as half full or half empty. Health reform advocates celebrated a new report showing that, despite the devastating economic slump, the vast majority of Massachusetts residents had not dropped health insurance coverage. Just 4.8 percent of the state’s residents went without insurance, the lowest rate in the country.

COVERAGE: Picking Up the Tab for Medicaid

May 26, 2010

The New Health Dialogue – Starting in 2014, the new health reform law will expand Medicaid coverage to most of the population below 133 percent of federal poverty level, amounting to about 15.9 million newly eligible enrollees by 2019. In a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, John Holahan and Irene Headen of the Urban Institute crunch the numbers and provide a state-by-state breakdown of what the Medicaid expansion means to states – and their budgets.

Bills would let small businesses buy coverage in bulk

February 11, 2010

Boston Herald – Massachusetts health insurers are now fighting a two-front war against critics. While Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday was calling for potential caps on insurance-premium increases, a couple of bills now winding their way through the Legislature would let small businesses band together to buy health insurance in bulk for employees – an idea the insurance industry despises.

Massachusetts’ Problem and Maryland’s Solution

February 9, 2010

Maggie Mahar (The Health Care Blog) – While health care reformers argue about what it would take to “break the curve” of health care inflation, the state of Maryland has done it, at least when it comes to hospital spending.

No high hopes for health care summit

February 8, 2010

Politico – Immediately after President Barack Obama announced a bipartisan health reform summit, Democrats and Republica3made clear they have almost no expectation the half-day meeting can break a bitter yearlong standoff.

Once they get it, people like universal health insurance

January 28, 2010

Atlanta Journal Constitution – Buried in the results of last week’s poll of Massachusetts votersby the Washington Post was a number that explains a lot of the politics behind the health-insurance reform controversy.

The pollster asked the following question:

As you may know, Massachusetts has a law that is aimed at assuring that virtually all Massachusetts residents have health insurance. Given what you know about it, in general, do you support or oppose the Massachusetts Universal Health Insurance Law?

Remove the back room deals and pass health care reform

January 24, 2010

Kansas City Star – When Democrats come out from hiding, they will still face the reality that failing to pass health care reform will doom them in the 2010 election cycle.

Five key health reform questions

January 24, 2010

Politico – President Barack Obama’s push for sweeping health care reform hangs in the balance when Congress returns this week, after being thrown into doubt by Republican Scott Brown’s special election win in Massachusetts.

California Officials Ponder Next Steps in Push for Health Reform

January 21, 2010

California Healthline – Pointing to the changed political landscape after Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) told the Wall Street Journal’s “Washington Wire” that Congress should slow down its approach to health care reform.

The Democrats’ options

January 21, 2010

Ezra Klein (The Washington Post) – The Jons (Chait, Cohn) aren’t too sold on the idea of pushing a slimmer, leaner bill through reconciliation. Nor am I, to be honest. But as I see it, there are two strategies that Democrats should be entertaining right now.

Brown’s victory in Mass. senate race hardly a repudiation of health reform

January 21, 2010

The Washington Post – While many are describing the election to fill the late Edward M. Kennedy‘s Senate seat as a referendum on national health-care reform, the Republican candidate rode to victory on a message more nuanced than flat-out resistance to universal health coverage: Massachusetts residents, he said, already had insurance and should not have to pay for it elsewhere.

White House vows to focus on “core elements” of health bill

January 20, 2010

MarketWatch – President Barack Obama said Wednesday that Washington must “coalesce” around the “core elements” of the plan to overhaul health care and that the Senate shouldn’t try to “jam” legislation through Congress before newly-elected Sen. Scott Brown takes his seat.

Jost: Pass the Bill Now.

January 20, 2010

The Treatment (The New Republic) – Last night’s Massachusetts shocker dramatically narrows options for health care reform. Until last night, House and Senate leaders were working together toward amendments that would improve some of the worst features of the Senate bill to resemble more closely the House provisions, with an eye toward both chambers enacting final legislation two to three weeks out. With the loss of a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, this option is no longer viable.

Democrats Wake Up To Different Landscape: Potentially Brutal 2010

January 20, 2010

TPMDC – Surveying the 2010 landscape in the aftermath of the Massachusetts special election that cost Democrats their 60-seat supermajority, President Obama and the Congressional Democrats are going to have to defend more seats, spend more money and potentially concede key elements of their agenda.

Rangel: We Will Pass Health Care

January 18, 2010

New York Daily News – Martha Coakley may lose the Democrats’ 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority tomorrow night, but powerful Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel says no how no way will that kill health care reform.

Healthcare bill would cut costs to small firms

July 15, 2009

Boston Globe – Massachusetts health insurers yesterday offered a plan they say will help make healthcare coverage more affordable for small businesses.

Subsidized care costs Massachusetts $794m

April 1, 2009

Boston Globe – The state’s bill for providing healthcare to employees and their families who work for large companies increased 24.6 percent to $793.7 million in the last fiscal year, according to a report released yesterday.

A Lesson on Health Care From Massachusetts

March 28, 2009

The New York Times – In any effort to restructure American health care, two interconnected goals inevitably compete for primacy. One is providing health coverage to the uninsured, counted in 2007 at 46 million, or 15 percent of the population, and almost certainly more now. The other is slowing the relentless and unsustainable growth of health costs, which threaten virtually every family, in imagination if not in fact.

Massachusetts Faces Costs of Big Health Care Plan

March 15, 2009

The New York Times – Three years ago, Massachusetts enacted perhaps the boldest state health care experiment in American history, bringing near-universal coverage to the commonwealth with Paul Revere speed.

Boost to health coverage planned

March 9, 2009

Boston Globe – Massachusetts will combine federal stimulus money with an existing state assistance program so that thousands of unemployed residents will be able to get health insurance at a small fraction of the usual cost, state officials are expected to announce today.

Click here to see Massachusetts’ State Health Guide.

Is Massachusetts a model for national reform?

December 30, 2008

The Health Care Blog – I get asked this question a lot these days, which shouldn’t be that surprising. Harvard Pilgrim is headquartered in Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts health care reform plan is already a couple of years old. More importantly, it has added about 440,000 people to the insured ranks (185,000 through unsubsidized private plans and another 255,000 through subsidized, Medicaid-like coverage), has maintained high employer participation (over 70%) and doesn’t appear to be crowding out private coverage as public coverage expands.

Click here to see Massachusett’s State Health Guide.