No Miracle in Massachusetts: Why Governor Romney's Health Care Reform Won't Work

Abstract

Massachusetts has enacted a far-reaching state health insurance reform package, featuring an unprecedented mandate that every resident obtain health insurance coverage. The package has received considerable praise from across the nation, but a number of its features should raise concern. Among those features: the individual mandate opens the door to widespread regulation of the health care industry and political interference in personal health care decisions; the act's subsidies are poorly targeted; the Massachusetts Health Care Connector, which restructures the individual and small business insurance markets, has the potential to severely limit consumer choice; and the act imposes new burdens on business and creates a host of new government bureaucracies to manage the health care system.