excerpt from Wikipedia on Massachusetts Health Reform: A paper published to be published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice analyzes the impact of Massachusetts approach to health financing reform, insurance mandates, on the rate of new business starts in Massachusetts versus New Hampshire. Along with an earlier dissertation published in April of 2008, it finds that new business starts were reduced in Massachusetts by 16%, and that this reduction included displacement of new firm starts across the state line into New Hampshire. In addition, the study found some evidence that this effect did not vary based on the size of the firm, but may have had a more negative effect on new businesses owned by women. The study's author suggested that were this approach to become a model of national health finance reform, that it would have an especially profound impact on physically small states such as those in New England where jurisdictional arbitrage is potentially a practical consideration for entrepreneurs. The author posits several other basic problems with this approach to health fundings and several alternative methodologies which might be more fruitful. The study controls for macroeconomic impacts using a novel difference-in-difference method, whereby a subregion of the Boston MSA which straddles the border with New Hampshire is treated as a single economic geography. The model predicts the decision to locate, not the aggregate number of new firms, and thus, the relationship between the two state regions within the MSA. This approach removes the impact of macroeceonomic variables because all participants in that economy experience the same macroeconomimc fluctuations, interest rates, etc., and assumes the overall rate of new formation in the area will remain unaltered. The data for the study used new firm start data gathered from a business directory which is updated on a bi-weekly basis. Massachusetts' problem of overcrowded waiting rooms and overworked primary-care physicians (who were already in short supply) has been exacerbated by the influx of patients now covered. One criticism of the program is that it has done nothing to realign incentives for MDs to provide primary care.
Why is Romney care popular with the Gop... That's news to me. In fact I asked our esteemed liberals some months ago how Romney care was working out. The consensus, if I recall, seemed to be: not that well but let's not talk about it lest it diminish support for Obama Care.