Posted on 05/28/2009 8:02:20 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Despite a weakening economy, Massachusetts continued to measure gains in the share of residents who reported having a steady source of health care in 2008, its second year of near-universal coverage, a new study has found.
But the annual survey, taken each fall since 2006, also raised red flags regarding the ability of residents to actually use that care, with growing numbers saying they could not afford needed treatments and many reporting shortages of primary care physicians.
The study’s authors wrote that there were lessons for Washington, where Congressional committees are incorporating much of the Massachusetts model into federal health care legislation.
“Although major expansions in coverage can be achieved without addressing health care costs, cost pressures have the potential to undermine the gains,” wrote the researchers, Sharon K. Long and Paul B. Masi of the Urban Institute.
The difficulties in receiving care were severest among low-income residents, who have gained the most from expanded access under the state’s law, passed in 2006. It requires most residents to have health insurance and provides state-subsidized plans for the poor. Massachusetts now has the country’s lowest percentage of the uninsured — 2.6 percent, compared with a national average of 15 percent.
But the study, which was scheduled for publication Thursday in the journal Health Affairs, found that increased demand for care from the newly insured was confronting an insufficient supply of willing physicians. One in five adults said they had been told in the last 12 months that a doctor or clinic was not accepting new patients or would not see patients with their type of insurance. The rejection rates for low-income adults and those with public insurance were double the rates for higher-income residents and those with private coverage.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
no worries. the experts will fix it. and fix it. and fix it. and...
good luck with that, libturds.
“Together We Can” go bankrupt: Massachusetts’ Liberal spending spree implodes
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2241978/posts
it was supposed to cost $245,000,000
it ended up costing $1,300,000,000.
it’s the Big Dig of healthcare
It also violates the 5th Amendment. But I digress...
The New York Lies continues its assault on capitalism and its incessant push for Socialism...nothing more, nothing less.
There is nothing about tort reform is there?
A doctor on Long Island called a radio talk show this morning and said his malpractice insurance will go up 30%. Doctors are going to find other ways of making a living.
My niece’s pediatrician is finding something else to do.
MA residents are paying through the nose for insurance and doctors aren’t available for them? That must be galling.
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