Massachusetts Healthcare Reform In 2006, the state of Massachusetts wanted to help its millions of uninsured citizens. State legislators and the governor have put a plan in place to help citizens obtain insurance. A law was passed to reform insurance in Massachusetts, known as Chapter 58 of the Massachusetts General Court Acts of 2006; its long-form title is An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care. The recently enacted law mandated that nearly all Massachusetts residents obtain a minimum level of insurance coverage. It also provided free health insurance to Massachusetts residents earning less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level. It also decreed that all employers who have more than ten full-time employees provide health insurance to their employees. (Ayanian, J. 2012). The reason why the state of Massachusetts was determined to reform state insurance policies dates back to 2004. There were multiple issues that pushed it to legislate. Some of the problems were directly related to insurance reform, others were not clearly related to it, but the most critical problem has always been the rising costs of health insurance. One of the issues state lawmakers faced was a waiver from the federal government six years ago. which governed how the state of Massachusetts ran its Medicaid program, and was about to expire. If state lawmakers do not renew the waiver, or modify it, millions of citizens would lose Medicaid coverage as the state reverts to federal regulations. State legislators thought this was unacceptable and knew that some sort of health insurance reform was needed. Another problem was the use, or abuse of the hospital... half of the document...%: Analysis. Business insurance. Himmelstein, David, U. “Medical Bankruptcy in Massachusetts: Has Health Care Reform Made a Difference?” The American Journal of Medicine, 2011, vol. 124, 224-228. DOI: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2010.11.009 -Graves, J. A., & Swartz, K. (2012). Health care reform and the dynamics of insurance coverage: Lessons from Massachusetts. New England Journal Of Medicine, 367(13),Dhingra, S.S., Zack, M.M., Strine, T.W., Druss, B.G., & Simoes, E. (2013). Changing health insurance coverage in Massachusetts and other New England states by perceived health status: Potential impact of health care reform. American Journal of Public Health, 103(6), e107-e114. doi:10.2105/ AJPH.2012.300997Ayanian, J. (2012). Massachusetts' journey to expand health insurance coverage. JGIM: Journal of General Internal Medicine, 27(2), 139-141. doi:10.1007/s11606-011-1940-1