Diagnosis on state health care
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick defended the state’s five-year-old health care reform Thursday (April 28), saying it has resulted in 98 percent of residents and 99.8 percent of children being covered by health insurance, and predicting that the state ultimately will figure out how to tame rising health care costs. Patrick said the law has worked well in the short term but acknowledged that rising costs are a long-term concern. He pointed out that those rising costs are not a result of the reforms themselves, but are part of the broader picture of rising health costs nationwide. Even so, he said, he is proposing to harness those costs by better integrating care and emphasizing primary and preventative treatment. “I believe Massachusetts will be the place where we crack the code on cost containment,” Patrick said. Patrick made an hour-long appearance at The Forum at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Webcast live, the event...