Three-hundred and twenty. It’s estimated that is the number of deaths prevented each year as a result of the 2006 Massachusetts health care law, a Harvard School of Public Health report says.
The decrease in the state’s mortality rate is the most concrete proof that Massachusetts’ health insurance mandate is improving people’s health.
When people have health insurance, they are more likely to get preventive care, go to the doctor when they become ill, and live longer. At least that was the expectation when Massachusetts passed the health coverage law back in 2006.
Now, there’s evidence of that link, in the study out Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
It found that in the first four years of mandatory health insurance, the state’s death rate dropped 2.9 percent , as compared to similar counties outside Massachusetts that did not expand health coverage.