A brief summarizing the House Ways and Means FY 2013 budget proposal.

This toolkit offers resources to help states design and implement effective education, outreach, and enrollment approaches for populations newly eligible for health coverage. (3/2012)

An online, interactive guide to Chapter 288 of the Acts of 2010, Massachusetts' most recent health care cost containment law. This online tool includes full, up-to-date text, section-by-section summaries and links to relevant reports, commissions, state agencies and final regulations.

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This budget brief describing the Governor's Fiscal Year 2013 (FY 2013) budget proposal for MassHealth (Medicaid) and other health care programs is the first in a series of fact sheets that will be published by the Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute (MMPI) and produced by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center in partnership with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. MMPI will be publishing budget fact sheets at each stage in the FY 2013 budget process, as budget proposals move through the legislature.

Stabilizing MassHealth Funding: Options to Break the Recurring Cycle of Expansion and Contraction, written by Beth Waldman of Bailit Health Purchasing, Robert Seifert of the Center for Health Law and Economics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Kate Nordahl of MMPI, discusses the challenges and implications of the counter-cyclical nature of the Medicaid program and options to reduce the reactive swings in MassHealth funding and scope of services that can come with downturns in the economy.

This report is the latest in a series by the Urban Institute analyzing the impact of the Massachusetts health reform law. Findings show that despite the state's economic recession Massachusetts has maintained record low levels of uninsured and access to needed health care has improved. This report is based on the 2010 Massachusetts Health Reform Survey (MHRS), which has tracked the impact of the law annually since 2006.

This report, written by Tony Dreyfus and Ellen Breslin Davidson of BD Group, provides an overview of the federal and state experience with risk adjustment in programs serving persons dually eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.

Summary of the MassHealth 1115 waiver renewal including a brief overview of four new provisions approved under the waiver renewal.

This toolkit offers resources to help states plan and implement a successful risk mitigation strategy for the state's health exchange. 

Report summarizing the results of a series of interviews conducted by the Center for Health Care Strategies with key Medicaid stakeholders from across the country on cutting-edge Medicaid strategies including: purchasing strategies to optimize delivery systems; payment strategies to leverage existing funds; integrated models of care to improve services for complex populations; and opportunities for improved organizational capacity.

This toolkit offers resources to help states determine health benefit designs to be offered on state health insurance exchanges. (11/2011)

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation report by Alan G. Raymond on the first five years of Massachusetts health reform implementation, including comprehensive assessments of how the law is working, impacts on coverage and access to care, and cost and funding.

Chart pack, prepared by the Center for Health Law and Economics at the UMass Medical School, including summary data on MassHealth enrollment and spending.  Designed to support use of the charts in presentations. 

This report by Colleen Barry of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health explores opportunities and issues around integrating behavioral health care and primary care under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and payment and delivery system reforms in Massachusetts. The report provides preliminary recommendations on how these major policy changes might be implemented with the goal of improving the coordination, quality and outcomes of mental health and addiction care in the Commonwealth.

This poll, fielded in late September 2011 and led by Robert Blendon at the Harvard Opinion Research Program, probed 1002 Massachusetts adults on various questions surrounding health care costs, including their perceptions of major cost drivers, who they believe should take the lead on addressing costs and how important is it for the state to take major action. The results reveal that the public is greatly concerned over rising costs and ready for the state to take major actions to tackle them.