Twenty years after Massachusetts passed landmark health care reform legislation that gave the state the highest rate of insurance coverage in the country, the leading players behind the law gathered in the same storied meeting hall where the 2006 bill was signed to celebrate their uncommon achievement.
Affordable Care Act
Posted inHEALTH CARE AT 20
Massachusetts health care reform met the moral moment
Living out the Brandeis credo to be a laboratory for democracy, we showed a path to providing health care coverage for nearly all residents
Posted inHEALTH CARE AT 20
Chapter 58 has made health care unaffordable for families and small businesses
We need an honest reckoning with the shortcomings of Massachusetts health care and what it would take to address them
Posted inHEALTH CARE AT 20
The Massachusetts Health Connector has been a resilient — and flexible — foundation for a bold experiment
Cost and affordability concerns, along with federal retreat on Affordable Care Act funding and policy, present big challenges as we enter our third decade
Posted inHEALTH CARE AT 20
Our history-making reform extended coverage to immigrants. That is now under threat.
Despite Massachusetts’s inclusive policies, structural racism and legal status discrimination have consistently undermined immigrants’ access to care, creating barriers that persist even for those who have coverage.
Posted inThe Codcast
Filling the health care funding gaps
This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith unravels the latests state health coverage moves with Audrey Morse Gasteier, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, and Alex Sheff, senior director of policy and government affairs at Health Care For All.
Posted inOpinion
Instead of a war on poverty, we wage war on the poor
EVERY SAFETY NET in this country has been stitched with holes just wide enough for many of us to slip through. We’ve recently had a front row seat to this […]
Posted inOpinion
Massachusetts health care is in trouble
A confluence of challenges points to very hard times ahead for the Massachusetts health care system.
Posted inThe Codcast
Mass. Health Connector chief: State must ‘deal with the reality in front of us’ as critical health care deadline looms
On the monthly Health or Consequences episode of The Codcast, John McDonough of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Paul Hattis of the Lown Institute spoke with Audrey Gasteier, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector. Gasteier about the current crisis facing residents of the Commonwealth should the federal government fail to renew premium tax credits.
Posted inHealth Care
For Affordable Care Act at 13, reversals of fortune
TODAY MARKS THE Affordable Care Act’s 13th birthday since its signing by President Obama on March 23, 2020, a landmark moment that our current president famously noted at the time with […]
Posted inHealth Care
Overturning Affordable Care Act could cost Massachusetts billions
THE US SUPREME COURT heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could overturn the Affordable Care Act – with major economic and health insurance implications for Massachusetts. Two key justices – Chief […]
Posted inHealth Care
Can Massachusetts fix a key problem with ACA coverage?
MASSACHUSETTS IS AMONG the bellwether states for its Affordable Care Act insurance coverage. But can our state lead in fixing the brutal challenges for many residents who must do battle […]
Posted inHealth Care
H-P chief: Medicare for all debate is good
THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care doesn’t want the government to take over the entire health insurance business – at least until after he retires – but he […]
Posted inThe Download
Trump finally pulls plug on Obamacare
President Trump is giving people more reasons to stay or move to Massachusetts. Late Thursday, the Justice Department announced it will no longer defend the provisions of the Affordable Care Act […]
Posted inOpinion
With junk insurance, you get what you pay for
INSPIRED BY MARCHES, movements (#MeToo, #TimesUp), and momentum (the unprecedented surge of females running for office), women are standing up for the issues that matter most to them. Let’s make […]
Posted inOpinion
Silver linings and seeds in tax cut law – Part II
This is the second part of John McDonough’s “Silver Linings Playbook.” Read the first installment here. THE AMERICAN AUTHOR Napoleon Hill wrote: “Every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics
No popular options for repeal or replace
WELL, THAT DIDN’T take long. Less than 24 hours after conservative senators Jerry Moran and Mike Lee joined Rand Paul and Susan Collins in opposing the Senate’s “repeal and replace” […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
A Republican path to ACA reform?
IF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP and Congressional Republicans were to decide that fixing rather than destroying the Affordable Care Act, especially its private health insurance marketplaces, was in their self-interest, could […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Republicans showing their hand on ACA ‘replacement’
LATE LAST WEEK, Politico released a leaked 105-page draft bill defining the House Republican plan to repeal/replace/repair/re-whatever the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare. The draft legislation was dated February 10, so likely […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Voices from Ohio on Medicaid expansion
OHIO IS ONE of 31 states that expanded Medicaid as permitted by the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare for nearly all low-income citizens. The state’s Republican governor, former presidential candidate John Kasich, […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Time to step up fight against ACA repeal
A NEW REPUBLICAN-CONTROLLED Congress is in place. And for the sixth time, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is facing extinction. Indeed, a gripping narrative history of the ACA/Obamacare could be […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Five Affordable Care Act questions for the GOP
SO, REPUBLICANS ARE planning a major blitz to repeal and delay/replace/collapse the Affordable Care Act/ACA/ObamaCare. I’ve got five questions to ask leaders of the Grand Old Party. First, if your […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Trump poised to dump Affordable Care Act
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP has nominated Rep. Tom Price of George, an orthopedic surgeon and the House Budget Committee chairman, to be his first secretary of health and human services. For […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Why Republicans hate the Affordable Care Act
THIS WEEK, THE US House of Representatives will take up reconciliation legislation, amended and approved in the US Senate last month, that would drill major, damaging holes in the Affordable […]