Access and affordability: an update on health reform in Massachusetts, fall 2008.

Massachusetts continues to move forward on comprehensive health reform. Uninsurance is at historically low levels, despite the recent economic downturn. Building on that coverage expansion, access to and affordability of care in the commonwealth have improved.

How have employers responded to health reform in Massachusetts? Employees' views at the end of one year.

In April 2006, Massachusetts enacted legislation that seeks to move the state to near-universal health insurance coverage, with key components of the reform effort targeting the role of employers. Based on surveys of working-age adults ages 18-64 in Massachusetts in 2006 and 2007, this paper examines employers' responses to health reform as reported by their employees. Results suggest that at roughly the end of the first year under health reform, employers in Massachusetts had made few changes in the insurance coverage they offered to their workers.