Health policy experts from UMass Medical School have created an updated overview of the Massachusetts Medicaid program, MassHealth, through a series of charts for the Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute, a program of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation.
The chart pack, MassHealth: The Basics – Facts, Trends and National Context, was created by a team from the Center for Health Law and Economics, a unit within UMass Medical School’s Commonwealth Medicine division. The chart pack updates previous sets developed by Center staff in April 2014, June 2012 and October 2011.
The charts include MassHealth enrollment data as of March 2015, which shows the program provides health insurance to more than one in four Massachusetts residents. Since the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), MassHealth enrollment has risen from 1.4 million to 1.8 million. More than half of people with disabilities, more than half of children of low-income families, and nearly two-thirds of residents of nursing facilities rely on MassHealth.
Also outlined in the charts is spending from fiscal 2014. The increase in MassHealth membership as a result of the ACA expansion, as well as economic trends, are the main reasons for the program’s increase in spending. Per capita spending for all enrollees combined has grown by 1.3 percent each year since 2007 and is nearly unchanged from the 2010 numbers.