Destroying Insurance Markets - Massachusetts

A proposed amendment to the Massachusetts state constitution, which would mandate that lawmakers provide medical insurance to all residents of the state, is the final stage in what critics have long warned would be a downward spiral for private health insurance caused by state over-regulation.

The amendment proposal, reported by the Associated Press on April 6, 2004, would require the state Legislature to “enact and implement such laws as will ensure that no Massachusetts resident lacks comprehensive, affordable, and equitably financed health insurance coverage for all medically necessary preventive, acute, and
chronic health care and mental health care services, prescription drugs, and devices.”