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I keep hearing that the Massachusetts Plan is a terrible failure, but I can't quite figure out why that is. Here, for instance, is The Boston Globe's recent editorial on the subject:
In a little less than two years, here's what Massachusetts has achieved:# Expanded Medicaid by 60,000 for the poor and near poor and children.# Established Commonwealth Care to provide insurance for adults living near poverty - more than 169,000 enrolled.# Created Commonwealth Choice policies for more affluent people - 16,000 enrolled.# Merged the individual and small-group markets so the self-employed can buy affordable insurance and encouraged businesses to set up programs so employees could get a tax savings on premiums - tens of thousands more enrolled in private insurance.# Structured an individual mandate so penalties only fall on those for whom affordable coverage is available.And here's The New York Times:
The financial problems are mostly because of underestimating the number of uninsured and the rate at which they would sign up for subsidized coverage. As a result, the state, which had originally expected to spend $472 million on subsidized insurance this fiscal year, now expects to spend about $150 million more than that. It anticipates spending almost $870 million next year.It is hard to see these unexpected costs as a catastrophe when some 300,000 people, more than half of the people who lacked insurance, now have coverage. This is a surprisingly quick start for a hugely complicated program launched only a year and a half ago.The fact that the plan is costing more than anticipated because the adoption rate is higher than expected does not, to me, seem like a failure. It's my position, argued here, that states can't do universal health reform, as they don't, over the long-run, have the fiscal stability to deal with the countercyclical demand for health insurance programs. But so far as I can tell, the Massachusetts program is bringing the state far closer than they've ever been, and is actually working pretty well.
