Study: Mortality rate dropped after Mass. health reform

A study released this week found that after Massachusetts enacted health reform requiring health coverage in 2006, the state’s death rate dropped significantly (Source: “Mortality Drop Seen to Follow ’06 Health Law,” New York Times, May 5, 2014).

The study, which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, examined deaths in Massachusetts from 2001 to 2010 and found that the mortality rate — the number of deaths per 100,000 people — fell by about 3 percent in the four years after the law, which was the model for the Affordable Care Act, went into effect.

Researchers found that the decline was steepest in counties with the highest proportions of poor and previously uninsured people. In contrast, the mortality rate in a control group of counties similar to Massachusetts in other states was largely unchanged.