BHI: The High Price of the Massachusetts Plan

Beacon Hill Institute analysts David Tuerck, Paul Bachman and Michael Head have published a new paper, "The High Price of Massachusetts Health Care Reform".

According to this summary at NCPA:

In this study, researchers calculated the effect of health care reform on state and federal governments and the private health insurance markets, including employee contributions to their private insurance plans:

State health care expenditures have risen by $414 million over the period.
Private health insurance costs have risen by $4.311 billion over the period.
The federal government has spent an additional $2.418 billion on Medicaid for Massachusetts.
Over this period, Medicare expenditures increased by $1.426 billion.
This amounts to a total cumulative cost of $8.569 billion over the period.

The state has been able to shift the majority of the costs to the federal government.

This is clearly an unsustainable approach. The end-stage will have to be European-style rationing of health care. Let's hope the rest of America learns from the example of Massachusetts -- before it's too late...

Update: Investor's Business Daily also summarizes the BHI findings in their OpEd, "Massachusetts Mess".