A probably unwelcome thank you

[docorion]

I would like to take a moment, on the 5th anniversary of chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006 (better known as the Massachusetts health reform law) to thank some of the people responsible for making it happen. (Some of these are people I know personally, having interviewed them for a paper in graduate school. Some, like Mitt, I know only by reputation

Comments

the problem is, it's more a health insurance law than a health *care* law

[quietann]

98% of people in MA have health insurance. It may not be *good* insurance, but it keeps at least a few out of the ER. (But our host here knows more about that than I do, as he is an ER doc.) It's at least somewhat easier for small businesses to get insurance, or subsidize their employees' individual policies.

But that's insurance, mostly, not care. What we're not seeing (yet, because it's way early in the game) is better management of chronic conditions, or significant cost savings.... People suddenly had insurance and could afford to actually use the medical system, and the people who did that may well have been people with latent chronic illnesses, so costs went up. (So maybe there is better management of chronic illnesses now???? But that costs money up front, money which hopefully will save you some $$$ that would otherwise be spent on hospitalizations of very, very sick people.)

(BTW -- I'm mostly interested in chronic conditions 'cause I have a couple myself, which would make it virtually impossible to buy insurance on the individual market -- though I could do so in MA.)

The system in MA is still very, very broken, but it's less broken than in many other states.

Re: the problem is, it's more a health insurance law than a health *care* law

[docorion]

Good point. The law changed none of the broken incentives; it pushed that work off on future legislatures, assuming there would continue to be gobs of money as the economy continued to boom. Um, yeah, that didn't work. Although it is possible that the economy put pressure on the health care system to become more efficient, and get the incentives right, that wouldn't have been present if we were still growing at whatever unrealistic percentage per year we were in 2006.