How SCOTUS ACA/Obamacare Ruling Impacts Mass

Most of the press coverage has focused on the political angle of the SCOTUS ruling, but the more interesting and complex questions lay at the policy level.

Pioneer recently released a book to propose a new relationship between states and the federal government, and it has received considerable national attention. Even if Democrats or Republicans don’t talk about the law this way, the new healthcare law is a new entitlement program and will likely be reformed in some manner to address the federal deficit. [Learn more, and download a couple free chapters or buy a copy at Greatexperiment.org]

But for now, and since the ACA was upheld, the policy questions refocus on individual state implementation.

Locally, conventional wisdom would tell you that Massachusetts will not change under the ACA. However, a careful review of the law quickly lays out the big changes ahead for the Commonwealth. An fitting analogy is that we will be changing the tires on a moving car on the highway, while other states are building a car from scratch.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will highlight some of the topics that have received little to no media attention.

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