A recent article from the New York Times discusses the impact of Massachusetts' new take on health insurance, making it mandatory for the state's residents.  For over a year now those residing in Massachusetts have been required to obtain health insurance, making it the largest state to implement mandatory insurance and strive for universal coverage.  The program, which began in 2007, has since significantly reduced the number of uninsured adults with more than 350,000 of the 600,000 uninsured residents gaining coverage.  In addition, the state is also providing subsidies on a sliding scale for low-income residents in order to assure more affordable health insurance.  However, 60,000 exemptions were made to those residents who exhibited the inability to pay even subsidized insurance.

With this sudden surge of newly insured residents many primary care physicians are feeling the impact.  Resident are now actively seeking care who before could not afford a physician visit or who are now simply taking advantage of their new insurance.  Unfortunately, the supply of internists and family practitioners is proving to be insufficient as the number of residents who reportedly said that they "did not get care because they could not find a doctor" has increased with this new policy.

As the second year of the new program continues, those holding stake in federal policy will surely be tuned in as Massachusetts' innovative approach to healthcare serves as a testing ground for the nation. 

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