Can a Health Care Mandate Reduce Disparities in Coverage?

This week the Supreme Court has been hearing arguments in a case against the Affordable Care Act. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, about 16 percent of Americans – around 50 million people – do not have health insurance. If the court upholds the health care law, however, that would change, with nearly all Americans having coverage by 2014. There is one state whose residents already enjoy nearly-universal coverage: Massachusetts. Under legislation signed by then-governor Mitt Romney in 2006, about 98 percent of Massachusetts state residents are insured. Massachusetts’s health coverage program has been largely seen as a success. Government costs haven’t risen dramatically, and a 2011 poll by The Boston Globe showed that 63 percent of residents support the law. Yet despite the successes of Masschusetts’s health care mandate, there are still considerable disparities in coverage among different demographics, according to Renee Landers, professor of law at Suffolk University.   Massachusetts resident Silvia Romero also joins the show to share her story about how the state’s health care law came to her aid when she lost health care coverage through her employer.