Massachusetts’ Indigent Care Spending Totaled $1.1B Last Year, Report Says
Massachusetts care providers last year spent $1.1 billion to provide medical services to the state's uninsured residents, according to a report commissioned by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, the Boston Globe reports. The report, which foundation executives are expected to release Tuesday, is the first step toward the foundation's "primary goal," which is to develop by next spring a plan that would provide health coverage to the state's 450,000 uninsured residents, according to the Globe. Providing health insurance to all uninsured residents would increase the state's health spending, according to the report, "Caring for the Uninsured in Massachusetts." The report says that if covered by health insurance, currently uninsured state residents would use more preventive care services and undergo more medical tests, which would increase per-person medical spending from $2,318 to $3,152, totaling $539 million in additional health care spending for the state. However, that additional spending would increase health care's share of the state economy by less than 1 percentage point and could yield social and economic benefits of up to $1.7 billion because state residents would be healthier, according to researchers from the Urban Institute who wrote the report. "This issue is alive in a way it hasn't been for a long time in Massachusetts," Andrew Dreyfus, the foundation's president, said, adding, "If we let the problem grow, it will be that much harder and more expensive to solve it."
Additional Massachusetts Effort
In related news, the group Health Care for All has formed a coalition of care providers, consumer groups and labor unions that on Dec. 1 plan to support legislation that would require small employers to provide health insurance to employees and provide financial assistance toward that effort (Kowalczyk, Boston Globe, 11/16).
WBUR's "WBUR News" on Monday included an interview with Dreyfus about the report (Oakes, "WBUR News," WBUR, 11/15). The complete segment is available online in RealPlayer.
