Research Papers on the Mandatory Massachusetts Health Insurance Law
Massachusetts Mandatory Health Insurance Law Research Paper. The law in Massachusetts states that all residents must have health insurance. A research paper on mandatory insurance laws on the state level should look at the following issues to be certain it covers all the legal and medical aspects:
- The fact that private insurers must use community rating to set prices
- Individuals will owe the state if they fail to obtain health insurance
At the heart of the Massachusetts mandatory health insurance law are two provisions which, while revolutionary in their own right, also have the most potential for having significant implications. The first of these is the mandate of private insurers to provide individual health insurance policies priced by community standards. The attraction of such mandate is obvious. Only by attaching a provision declaring that private insurers must offer policies based on community pricing guidelines could Massachusetts legislators hope to create a health insurance market readily available to the Commonwealth’s most impoverished citizens, thereby including those individuals for whom the law was largely written in the first place. The Massachusetts health insurance law also creates a mechanism called the “Commonwealth Care Health Insurance Connector” which essentially increases the purchasing power of the state’s citizens by creating a single large purchasing group. In this instance, the ambition of the legislation is admirable. However, in seeking to actively influence the health insurance market, the Massachusetts mandatory health insurance law and the Commonwealth Connector mechanism create a system which places significant market stresses on private insurers. The result will most likely be low cost plans, available to low-income residents, which come with attached high-deductibles and co-payments. As a result, it is estimated that many low-income families may be forced to devote up to 20% of their annual income to mandatory but minimally providing health plans.
Additionally, provisions such has these essentially represent enhanced regulation of the health insurance market, and many researchers are of the opinion that the solution to the current health insurance crisis lies in the creation of a “robust, wide, and open market” in line with most free market operating systems. However, the Massachusetts mandatory health insurance law actually increases government regulation of the health insurance industry, creating the potential for government interference to decrease the affordability of health insurance to certain segments of the population.
The second particularly contentious aspect of the Massachusetts mandatory health insurance law is the penalties provided for individual who fail to acquire health insurance. In reality, those people who will find themselves unable to acquire health insure due to financial reasons, thereby being liable for mandatory penalties, are those individuals mired in significant, persistent poverty. Therefore, financial penalties in the form of increased tax liability and bond payments, are essentially an additional or increased tax on the state’s poorest individuals who the mandatory health insurance law is directed at assisting.