AS THOUSANDS OF residents drop coverage or hunt for higher priced plans through the Massachusetts Health Connector, Gov. Maura Healey said Tuesday that officials are exploring how to connect residents with other insurance options.
“We’ve seen premiums expected to increase two or three times,” Healey said on GBH News’ Boston Public Radio. “Now the good news — and I hope to be out with more word on this soon — we’re working to see how we can come up with ways to cover people.”
Tuesday marked the Health Connector’s deadline for Bay Staters to sign up for plans that start on January 1. It’s been a tumultuous open enrollment cycle, with more than 10,000 people already dropping coverage as they grapple with sticker shock from premium spikes.
In the aftermath of the country’s longest government shutdown, Congress couldn’t reach a bipartisan deal to extend enhanced premium tax credits, which are slated to expire on December 31 under a 2022 federal law.
Healey said Tuesday that the loss of subsidies will translate into “upwards of 350,000” Massachusetts residents losing their health insurance. GBH co-host Jim Braude asked Healey to clarify whether her administration is examining whether those people “could be covered by the state in some fashion.”
“Well there are other programs, Jim. There are other health insurance plans,” Healey replied. “And we just want to make sure that, you know, those people, if they qualify for a different plan, that we’re able to get them into that.”
Analysts say Massachusetts residents will face additional health insurance losses in 2027, as new Medicaid work requirements take effect under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. A recent report advised the state to develop a model similar to the “COVID-era command center” to thwart coverage losses and ensure compliance with forthcoming federal regulations.
Massachusetts is expected to lose $3.5 billion annually once all health care components of that federal law take effect, according to Audrey Shelto of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts.
Healey did not directly answer a question from a caller who asked the governor to use her power and tap into the state’s more than $8 billion rainy day fund to stave off federal funding cuts. The caller, identified as Chris in Boston, said he has a disability and relies on MassHealth.
“I will say I am focused as we move into this budget season on making sure that we do what we need to do to protect the most vulnerable among us,” said Healey, who must file her fiscal 2027 budget proposal by January 28.
Later in the interview, Healey lamented that “health care is broken in this country.”
“And we’re seeing it every day with what’s happening with escalating health care costs for people and businesses around this country,” Healey said. “You know in Massachusetts, we can only work with the money that we have. And you know, you see the reports of hospitals struggling.”
The governor’s comments came after a veteran nurse called in to reflect on the closure of Carney Hospital in Dorchester during the Steward Health Care bankruptcy crisis. The caller, identified as Susan in Milton, told Healey Massachusetts has a “dearth of hospitals” and that she “had never seen health care so bad in my life.”
The state seized another Steward hospital, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, by eminent domain in September 2024. Nurses at the facility — since renamed Boston Medical Center-Brighton — voted to authorize a three-day strike depending on how contract negotiations unfold, the Massachusetts Nurses Association announced Monday.
BMC Brighton nurses are concerned about potential plans to eliminate certain positions, curtail access to a pension plan, reduce paid time-off benefits, increase health insurance costs and not raise pay for the majority of nurses, the union said. The MNA said it represents 650 nurses at the hospital.
“To do this to our members, who already sacrificed so much during the turmoil of the Steward crisis and stuck with this hospital to ensure the safety of our community just adds further insult to the injury we have already suffered,” said Kate Cashman, a BMC Brighton nurse and bargaining committee co-chair.