Thousands of newly insured Massachusetts residents are relying on emergency rooms for routine medical care, an expensive habit that drives up healthcare costs and thwarts a major goal of the state's first-in-the-nation health insurance law. Full Story »
Posted by Derek Hawkins
I found this article provided a lot of context on one part of the issue. What information there is is informative, I did not know that non-emergency treatment in ER drives up the cost of healthcare. However I wish the article better explored the reasons that the poor and young recipients of subsidized healthcare are less likely to see a primary care doctor. Rather, the article focuses on what the insurance and managed care companies are doing to stem rising health care costs. Surely other factors contribute to the rising cost of health care, and should be given at least a cursory look, but that context is lacking from the article.
I prefer that the reporter was explicit about what the major goal of the insurance law was, so I think this sounds better:
"Thousands of newly insured Massachusetts residents are relying on emergency rooms for routine medical care, an expensive habit that thwarts a major goal of the state’s first-in-the-nation health insurance law: To keep health insurance cheap.