Recently, the reforms made by Massachusetts to their health care system three years ago have been making major headlines in current news. Why? Enough time has finally passed to make an educated analysis of its progress, and decide whether or not Massachusetts’ health care reform could serve as a potential nationwide model.
What does Massachusetts reform include? Essentially, Massachusetts residents are required to maintain health insurance coverage. If you are unable to provide proof of insurance, a fine will be assessed to you or your family. Furthermore, the state will subsidize the cost of insurance for residents who earn less than 300% of the federal poverty level, and for others who are not eligible for employer sponsored plans.

Although such a reform has provided Massachusetts with the lowest state population of uninsured individuals (approximately 3%), what are the consequences starting to evolve? It has become increasingly evident that the demand for health services (because so many people have coverage) is unable to be satisfied by the supply of medical doctors available. Doctors simply don’t have the ability to take on such an influx of new patients, and as a result individuals many times find themselves in the emergency room to receive care. Furthermore, the reimbursement primary care physicians receive from insurance companies and government sponsored plans is dramatically less than what specialists receive.

As a result the state of Massachusetts has witnessed many primary care physicians leaving their state to pursue more rewarding opportunities elsewhere. Such a trend has even been noted when observing students entering medical programs; namely, more medical students are looking into specialty degrees instead of primary care. With such a dilemma, the success of Massachusetts’ reform is in jeopardy.

Dually noted is the fact that Massachusetts has taken the biggest steps in our country to lowering the number of individuals who go through life uninsured. Both their efforts and progress should be commended by our country; however we must find a collective way to overcome the hurdles they are experiencing.