The Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Health Care Plan Analysis

In April of 2006, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted a type of universal health care. Every citizen in the commonwealth had to acquire some form of health care. Companies of eleven or more people were also required to purchase healthcare for their employees. This provides people with many options of health care, while still requiring them to have health care. Massachusetts has successfully used this system for the past four years, but it is not without problems. There is a severe lack of primary care physicians. While many of those uninsured before the plan was passed have now gained health care, they cannot find a primary physicians. This has caused a large influx in people using the emergency room for basic care rather than using a doctor more appropriate for the situation. In actuality, the health care program in Massachusetts was supposed to prevent the use of emergency rooms for non-emergency situations. Insurance is also still very expensive; the necessity for everyone to have insurance has not lowered the price of healthcare. It is also not a priority for many of those who live in the commonwealth. Those who would rather pay the tax fee do not end up buying insurance. The compulsory healthcare system of the commonwealth of Massachusetts does make insurance more readily available to their citizens, but it does not create a more affordable or more useful health care system. The commonwealth of Massachusetts has a revolutionary heath care system, but it needs to create more doctors, better affordability, and encourage more people to get ‘buy in’ to the health care plan.

The commonwealth of Massachusetts’ compulsory health care system does make health care mandatory for all its inhabitants, but it cannot provide prima...

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...to be fixed before it can spread to larger, more populated states. Many of these issues compound upon each other. For example, the costs of health care would go down if more primary care physicians were available for patients to visit, and thus more people would sign up for health care because the costs would be lower than the taxes that exist. While solutions to these problems will increase the number of people ‘buying in’ to health care, nothing will convince everyone that it is necessary. Thus, people need to be constantly educated, at a young age, so they will assume that health care is mandatory. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ health care plan does have a very important aspect that needs to be copied throughout the union - they require health care for all of their inhabitants and that all the decent sized companies provide health care for their employees.