How Massachusetts Is Faring Under Its Landmark Health-Care Reform Law
The federal Affordable Care Act is set to kick in fully by 2014, now that the US Supreme Court has affirmed that it is constitutional. The Massachusetts reforms upon which the ACA is based took effect in 2006, under then-Gov. Mitt Romney. So, what does the record show in Massachusetts - did jobs evaporate and is the state bankrupt, as critics portended? Or is the Bay State rather an example of health-care nirvana, as supporters predicted?
Neither extreme is true, and the lessons of Massachusetts may not all apply in the broader national context. But overall, the state is doing pretty well under its reform law, say those who have studied its effects upon residents, businesses, and state coffers.
For one, about 400,000 additional people are newly covered by health insurance, bringing down the share of uninsured residents from 7.4 percent in 2004 to 1.9 percent by 2010, according to the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy. Massachusetts now has the highest percentage of insured residents among all the states.