High Cost of Massachusetts Health Care (education, program, state, support)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Massachusetts' health-care costs have escalated at an unsustainable rate. Consumers experience these increases as higher deductibles, copayments, and out-of-pocket costs. We've begun to get a good picture of what was contributing to the rising cost of health care -- and a clear indication that spending more was not necessarily contributing to our overall health.
For the first time on a statewide scale, we will move away from the current fee-for-service system, which pays for every procedure, test, and office visit, but does not pay for phone consultations, e-mail exchanges, home visits, health education, or wellness and nutrition education. In short, the system pays when stuff is done to us, but it does not support efforts to keep us healthy.