Will The Massachusetts Health Insurance Law Work? Not According to These Doctors

The Massachusetts law requiring nearly all state residents to buy health insurance won’t work according to two Cambridge Hospital physicians, because “it costs too much and delivers too little. ”

Writing in The Boston Globe, Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein claim that Census data suggests “new sign-ups amount to less than one-quarter of the uninsured. ” Meanwhile, they argue, much of that gain in coverage has been wiped out by the shrinking of employer-sponsored coverage.

In particular, the two doctors think the law fails due to the “scant help offered to the struggling middle class ” and the lack of affordable health plans in Massachusetts.