Mass health reform: Still a work in progress

A year has passed since Massachusetts approved its broad health reform package. Several states are borrowing its ideas before anyone knows for sure the program will work.

By Doug Trapp, AMNews staff. April 2, 2007.

When Massachusetts made a splash last year with its universal health care plan, the state coined a new buzzword as well: "connector."

Simply put, the term means connecting the uninsured to the health care system. Massachusetts would do this using privately run but state-supervised health plans.

Now, one year later, several states are following Massachusetts' lead. The word "connector" has popped up in proposals introduced in California and Connecticut. Six other states have plans using similar mechanisms with other names.

But is it too early? Massachusetts' Commonwealth Connector still hasn't been implemented fully. The eight-member oversight board still must make key decisions about how to carry out the reforms.

The $2.18 billion plan passed in part because lawmakers didn't get too specific in the legislation, said Len Nichols, PhD, director of the health policy program at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute in Washington, D.C. "They left important details to the Connector board."

While many specifics still must be worked out, the basics are there. The bipartisan reform, adopted in April 2006, includes a major innovation: mandatory proof of health insurance.

Just as states require people to insure their cars, Massachusetts is demanding its residents insure their bodies -- by July 1. If not, residents face $200 in tax penalties next year and a fine the following year equal to half the cost of a year's worth of the most affordable insurance premium available to them, said Commonwealth Connector spokeswoman Joan Fallon.