Editor’s Spotlight/Take 5: Universal Health Insurance Coverage in Massachusetts Did Not Change the Trajectory of Arthroplasty Use or Costs

Excerpt

In 2006, Massachusetts became one of the first states to provide universal health insurance coverage to all residents. These reforms, entitled “An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care (Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006),” had the simultaneous goal of “bending the cost curve down” [5]. Soon after, the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), colloquially known as Obamacare, was signed into law in 2010. The PPACA’s goals were two-fold: Provide improved access for low-income Americans to affordable, quality health insurance, and to reduce the costs of healthcare. The PPACA aimed to expand the affordability, quality, and availability of private and public health insurance through consumer protections, regulations on coverage, subsidies, taxes, and insurance exchanges, among other reforms. Much of the PPACA was explicitly modeled on the reforms enacted in Massachusetts in 2006 [4]. Thus, the Massachusetts experience may provide an advanced look at the effects of large-scale health insurance reform. …