Author: Tom Entrikin | Posted: 18. April 2012 11:01
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nationally recognized non-profit research organization, has released an excellent report that analyses the financial impact on the Commonwealth of the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform law, Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006. As a result of Chapter 58, over 98 percent of Massachusetts residents have health coverage, access to needed care has improved, and the percentage of Massachusetts employers offering coverage to their workers has increased. The April 2012 report examines net state expenditures for 2006-2011 under MassHealth, Commonwealth Care, Supplemental Payments to Safety Net Hospitals, the Uncompensated Care/Health Safety Net Trust Fund, and Supplemental Payments to Medicaid Managed Care Organizations. The 2006-2011 increases in the first three of these spending categories were offset in part by declines in the Uncompensated Care/Health Safety Net Trust Fund and Supplemental Payments to Medicaid Managed Care Organizations. The report shows that net incremental state expenditures attributable to the Massachusetts health care reform law, as measured by comparing 2011 to 2006, were $453 million, about 1.4 percent of the $32 billion state budget in state fiscal year 2011. Massachusetts still is a high cost state for health care overall but has dropped from highest in the United States to ninth. The report also notes that individual premiums for Massachusetts workers rose by 2.8 percent in 2011 versus 5.8 percent in the U.S. as a whole, while family premiums for private, employer-sponsored coverage in Massachusetts fell by nearly 1 percent in 2011 versus a 6 percent increase in the U.S. as a whole.
