After former Governor Mitt Romney and members of the state legislature worked together to pass a landmark bill last year to make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to require universal health care, the deadline is rapidly approaching to expand coverage to its uninsured residents.
Employers must provide coverage for their employees by July 1 or face penalties, according to Brian Rosman, the director of policy for Health Care for All, a local nonprofit public health organization.
If they employ 10 or more people, businesses must chip in a third of insurance premium costs, or show that a quarter of workers are enrolled in an employee-sponsored plan, according to the Web site of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, the body in charge of implementing the legislation.
Margaret Higham, the medical director of Tufts Health Service, said that the insurance Tufts offers to students already exceeds state standards and no changes will be required. "Tufts University has great benefits, so we get great insurance options," she said. "They're all much more complete than the state-mandated policy ... The law is really talking about small employers who don't offer insurance to their employees."
Another looming deadline is January 2009. By then, businesses will also be required to provide employees prescription drug coverage. Many of them are already concerned about the costs of doing so.
"It's easy to say, 'Everyone buy insurance.' It's harder to for everyone to afford it," said Dr. John Saragas, who owns an eye care practice in Davis Square and sees the situation both as a medical practitioner and a business owner.
He said that "that there should be some form of [universal] insurance, but whether this is best, time will tell."
The plan won't affect his practice, since his employees' insurance meets the required standard, but it will affect his patients positively by requiring health care for all of them, he said.
While the benefits of providing prescription drugs are plain, the price tag won't be as easy to swallow.
"That's where the big pushback is coming," explained Gary McKissick, a community health lecturer at Tufts. Though many employers already offer health insurance, they're still grappling with the added cost of add-on requirements like prescription drug coverage.
But Rosman is optimistic that other states - and perhaps the country - will follow Massachusetts' lead to improve healthcare nationwide, saying that states like California and Pennsylvania have begun discussing similar plans.
"It's really starting to influence national debate," he said.
"There's a lot of buzz," McKissick said. "But whether people actually copy it, we won't know for years."
Both Rosman and McKissick agree that things will change and that the state will continue to work through the kinks. "This is an experiment; it's not going to be static," Rosman said.
