Report: Mass. Cannot Continue to Sustain Costs for Reform

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A physician advocacy group has released a report detailing the costs to Massachusetts in the wake of its healthcare reform. The goal is to shed light on the potential costs to the country as a whole once reform begins in earnest. The single-payer advocacy group mainly cites that cost shifting of taxpayer subsidies to fund the private insurance marketplace is creating an access burden for the state’s impoverished and lower middle class by pricing them out.

Most of the gains in coverage have come from expansions in publicly subsidized insurance. This largely represented a shift of patients from the state’s former Free Care Pool, which compensated hospitals and community health centers directly for care of the uninsured, to private insurance plans, which is a more costly way to provide care.

Read the PDF of the entire report. The report appears to yearn for a less-than-market-based approach to solving this financial crisis as a way in which access to care can remain intact amid long-term reform sustainability. This report was released jointly among this group and via the state chapter of Physicians For a National Health Program.