How Have Employers Responded to Health Reform in Massachusetts?
Employee's Views at the End of One Year
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Posted to Web: October 28, 2008
Permanent Link: http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=1001219
In April 2006, Massachusetts passed legislation intended to move the state to near-universal coverage within three years, with key components of the reform effort targeting the role of employers. Based on surveys of working-age adults in the state in 2006 and 2007, this paper examines employers’ responses to health reform as reported by their employees. At roughly the end of the first year under health reform, employers in Massachusetts had made few changes in the insurance coverage they offered their workers. Long and Masi find no evidence that employers have dropped coverage, tightened eligibility for coverage, or changed the scope of benefits, network of providers or quality of care available under the health plans. Nor is their evidence that employers have shifted a greater share of the cost of health care onto their workers in response to health reform.
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