The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF) put out a report late last week on the cost of Massachusetts health reform. The number from the report that has gotten the most media attention has been– $91 million.
Over the five full fiscal years since the law was implemented, the incremental additional state cost per year has averaged $91 million…
This is a very strange way to interpret the cost data. Here is the breakdown from the report:
The better number to highlight would be the incremental increase each year over the 2006 baseline.
If you add this up and divide by 5, you come up with an average over the 2006 baseline of $738 million, and a state share of $369 million per year. That is a much different story than the $91 million being widely reported.
