Study: Mass. health law has not staunched medical bankruptcies

The Boston Globe: Medical Bankruptcies A Continuing Problem, Study Finds
The 2006 Massachusetts law that required nearly everyone to buy health insurance has not significantly staunched residents' pain from medical bankruptcies, according to a new study. A survey of Massachusetts residents who filed for bankruptcy in July 2009 found that 53 percent cited a medical cause, down from 59 percent who blamed a medical cause in a survey done in early 2007, before the state law had been fully implemented. But because of the small number of people surveyed, the difference was not statistically significant, according to the study in today's American Journal of Medicine (Lazar, 3/8).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.