Report: Many Newly Insured Pay Own Way
The majority of new health care enrollees under the two-year-old Massachusetts health care reform law pay all or a significant share of their premiums, according to a new state report on the law.
Of 439,000 people who became insured between June 2006 and March 2008, 41 percent get their insurance from the partially state-subsidized Commonwealth Care program and 16 percent are enrolled in MassHealth, according to the report by the state health care agency Commonwealth Connector. Another 36 percent get coverage through their employers, and 7 percent receive non-group insurance. Early reports after the law passed had suggested most new enrollees were receiving heavily subsidized coverage.
The report acknowledges that spending on Commonwealth Care has exceeded early projections for 2008 by more than $150 million, but it says that overrun is largely an indication that the uninsured population was greater than originally estimated. On the basis of cost per member per month, it said, costs have been in line with the budget over the past two years.
Due to the law, the report said, Massachusetts now has the lowest rate of uninsured residents in the country, and use of free care in the state has dropped 37 percent.
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