July 1 marks a milestone in our effort to provide health insurance to virtually every resident of the Commonwealth. It is a call-to-action: if you do not have health insurance, start shopping now, because we can offer new options and, if you don’t, penalties start at the end of this year.

But July 1 is only one date in a year highlighted by fast-paced policy decisions and launches. These include new, subsidized and unsubsidized programs, seal of approval, minimum creditable coverage, Section 125 plans, an affordability schedule and waivers, to name but a few.

There are now over 130,000 insured people who didn’t have coverage a year ago. Commonwealth Care is growing by 10,000 members a month, and the Health Connector is receiving more than 50,000 inquiries a week from people who are learning about and shopping for our products.

This is remarkable progress, thanks in great part to a broad civic campaign of outreach and education, but there is much more to do! Read more…

BOSTON, Mass. – June 29, 2007 – On Sunday, Massachusetts becomes the first state in the US, and the third government in the world, to require that most adults have health insurance.

Ron Norton hopes to lead a Boston Tea Party style rebellion against the state’s Health Insurance Mandate.

About 60,000 people, who earn too much to qualify for subsidized coverage but not enough to buy it on their own, will be exempt.

But everyone else will face a penalty if they don’t have insurance by the end of the year. WBUR’s Martha Bebinger checks in with a few uninsured residents to find out what they are doing about the deadline.

Click here to listen to the story

BOSTON, Mass. – June 28, 2007 – The latest documentary from filmmaker Michael Moore opens across the country tomorrow. “Sicko” chronicles the failings of the US health care system and celebrates its counterparts in Canada, Britain, France and Cuba…all countries with socialized health care systems.

Some critics call it Moore’s best movie yet. But how accurate is it? WBUR’s Health and Science reporter Allan Coukell gives “Sicko” the “Michael Moore” treatment.

Click here to listen to the story.

Michael Moore’s official web site

We are no doubt facing a primary care physician shortage. Massachusetts Medical Society recently reported that 54% of our community hospitals are facing a lack of family practitioners, a situation directly impacting consumers. The number of people who waited more than two months to see a primary care physician jumped from 10 percent in 2005 to 16 percent in 2006. While there are many reasons for this shortage, including the state’s high cost of living and the current reimbursement model which favors specialty care, an easy, quick fix solution is not possible. This then begs the question, how do we deliver the necessary care in the midst of this drastic shortage?

The healthcare community needs to act quickly. The rise of obesity, chronic disease and an aging population is rapidly increasing the demand for primary care, and the $50 billion on healthcare we spent last year, (as recently noted by the Boston Foundation), is not tempering the problem. A shift from the current primary care model to a more coordinated care model is one approach that could potentially help stave off our healthcare dilemma. Read more…

Click here for the complete results of a poll out today on public attitudes about the law and the requirement that most adults in Massachusetts have health insurance.

The Connector board approved a final set of rules today about who will have to buy health insurance. These tables show what is considered affordable health coverage for low to moderate income individuals. Here’s on example….a 40 year old woman named Sally lives in Boston and earns $50,000 dollars a year. Sally will be required to have health insurance if she can find a plan that costs $235 a month or less. If she can’t find coverage at that price or less, Sally will not be required to buy health coverage. The formula changes if Sally moves to Central or Western Masachusetts or to the Cape and Islands, because the price of health insurance varies depending on where you live.

In a few short days the state’s landmark health reform law will reach another milestone – the requirement that each individual have health insurance. The Connector Authority, together with the health insurers, has developed 35 different insurance products to meet an individual’s needs. All of these plans are similar in that they offer coverage with low premiums but relatively high co-payments and deductibles.

Who is responsible for explaining and collecting the co-payments and deductibles? If you think it’s the insurers you are wrong. As it stands now, it’s mainly up to your local hospital to explain the plan’s coverage and to collect “out-of-pocket” expenses – an often difficult, costly and time-consuming effort.

I think that should change and so does state Senator Richard Moore, Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, who introduced a bill – SB690 – that shifts responsibility for collecting co-payments and deductibles to insurers who design the plans. Read more…

Many supporters of Massachusetts health care reform have voiced their concerns on this blog and elsewhere that unless cost and quality are addressed, the goal of nearly universal coverage will be unachievable. They’re right. The problem is, we can’t possibly hope to improve quality unless we can measure it, and, for the most part, health care quality measurement is still in its infancy. Thanks to a decade of collaboration among providers, health plans, consumer groups, employers, policymakers and health care experts, however, Massachusetts has a pretty good head start over most of the country.

For several years, Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (MHQP) has published unbiased information on how well 150 medical groups across the state meet national standards for preventive services such as cancer screening and well-child care and for the management of patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma. These are services that are intended to prevent the onset of more debilitating and expensive conditions, so when they are performed well, they not only improve health but also help control costs. Read more…

In 2004, Massachusetts altered the law governing Independent Contractors, unbeknownst to many in this State. Essentially, it is now next to impossible for someone to be paid as an independent contractor – or “1099ed” — in the Commonwealth.

Here’s our understanding, at the Artists Foundation, of how this all came about: From what we currently know, it was the MA Carpenters’ Union who backed the legal change because it wanted to control the abuses in the construction industry. (That’s clearly an important issue that does need to be addressed but the way they altered the law governing independent contractors was not the way to do so).

Meanwhile, most people in the arts community are unaware of the development and are learning about it via the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Law. Read more…

As a member of the Connector Board, and as a member of the ACT!! Coalition, it has always stunned me to look out at the room of people who are interested in reform.

From the Blue Cross Blue Shield “Roadmap to Coverage” forums, to the regular attendees of Connector Board meetings, to the composition of the Connector Board and staff itself, the visual of healthcare policy in Massachusetts is a sea of white faces with an occasional face of color visible. I should add I am one of those white faces myself. Over the past six months, the Connector board has addressed minimum creditable coverage, affordability levels, consumer choice and a slew of other meaty issues. But we haven’t addressed the topic of racial and ethnic disparities. And with the exception of our new Governor and the head of EOHHS, Dr. Judy Ann Bigby, there is little input to how we should change, manage or improve our decisions that have helped us understand potential disparities we’ve built into our system of access. Read more…