Links

A Lesson on Health Care from Massachusetts
A New York Times article on the state's decision to go for universal coverage before addressing cost containment, in contrast to the White House and Congress, which are ready to tackle both at once. Rising costs in Massachusetts now threaten the viability of its program. View the graphic comparing what Massachusetts has done to what Obama has proposed. (March 28, 2009)

Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review -- Massachusetts Health Plan
Health care expert and blogger Bob Laszewski analyzes Massachusetts health care reform.

Health Care For All -- MA Health Reform
This page, from a Massachusetts nonprofit, lays out the basics of the reform and links to the full text of the 2006 reform law.

Health Reform in Massachusetts -- Expanding Coverage, Escalating Costs
The New England Journal of Medicine's assessment of the first two years of Massachusetts' program. (June 26, 2008)

Mass. Healthcare Reform Is Failing Us
"Massachusetts has been lauded for its healthcare reform, but the program is a failure. Created solely to achieve universal insurance coverage, the plan does not even begin to address the other essential components of a successful healthcare system." (The Boston Globe, March 2, 2009)

Massachusetts Faces Cost of Big Health Care Plan
"The day of reckoning has arrived. Threatened first by rapid early enrollment in its new subsidized insurance program and now by a withering economy, the state's pioneering overhaul has entered a second, more challenging phase." (The New York Times, March 15, 2009)

Massachusetts Miracle -- Or Catastrophe?
Jonathan Cohn asks this question on The New Republic's health care blog. Read responses from Diana Archer, who believes the Massachusetts plan is not a model for the nation and Jonathan Gruber, a proponent of the state's reform. (The New Republic, March 17, 2009)

Massachusetts Health Care Reform: Two Years Later
A fact sheet from the Kaiser Family Foundation evaluating Massachusetts' progress. (PDF File; May 2008)

Mass. Health Care Reform Reveals Doctor Shortage
NPR reports on one side effect of universal coverage: doctors scrambling to treat all of the new patients. (Nov. 30, 2008)

Poll Shows Strong Support for MA Health Reform Law
The Harvard School of Public Health and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation report, "Two years after the implementation of a health care reform law aimed at providing health coverage for nearly all Massachusetts residents, public support for the law remains high." (July 15, 2008)

Unhealthy System
The Boston Globe's 2008 series on Partners HealthCare and rising costs in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Office of Health and Human Services
Resources and reports for consumers, providers, researchers and the government.