About the only things I know about Massachusetts have to do with beans (Blazing Saddles), a bunch of whiteys dressed up as Indians (wonder if they were wearing wigs?), and burning witches at the stake (now that's hot).

 Being from the Deep South, my purview of the rest of the country is somewhat narrow, and I suppose for every one of us, there is enough history, news, and politics in our own states to keep up narrowly focused and narrowly minded for a lifetime.  Thank God, I never had to spell Massachusetts in a spelling bee growing up, because that would have for sure thrown me out of the saddle.

Being interested in healthcare, I have been hearing for a couple of years about this movement by the state of Massachusetts to mandate health insurance for all of its citizens.  Besides finding the idea of it generally suspicious, I've really not paid much attention to it.

I stumbled across an article online in The MetroWest Daily News, written by guest columnist Jon Kingsdale.   Being from the South, I had no clue what market this paper served, so I checked the obituaries for the paper and saw such locals as Sudsbury, Falmouth, Framingham, and Rockland, Westborough, and Westchester.  While I didn't know the people or places, I figured out pretty quickly they weren't  from around here.  This was confirmed when I saw many seemed to have died in various branches of the U Mass Hospital system.

I suppose if I were some policy wonk, I'd also recognize the name of Jon Kingsdale, but I didn't and had to look him up too.  But not in the obituaries.  Turns out he is the CEO of the Massachusetts Health Connector.  Didn't know what that was either so I had to look it up too....

Honestly, I don't know how you folks in Massachusetts keep up with all this stuff, but the Health Connector is the state run agency that is in the middle of making sure all the good citizens of that state get health insurance or get fined.  Don't you just love Government?

Anyway, the short story on Massachusetts health policy is that pretty much all adults in the state have to have health insurance in 2009 or face fines.  I'm not sure about kids, but presume they have to have coverage too, but I'm guessing it would be difficult to collect fines from them.  And the fines are not small.  They could exceed $900 per year.

Citizens of Massachusetts can't just have any old insurance coverage, they actually have to have policies that provide them with certain standards of coverage.  As an aside, it is sad that there are policies out there that purport to provide coverage, but that in fact are crap and will do nothing but make an individual health crisis worse in the event it ever had to be used.

So where is the The Gradock Bulletin going with all of this?  We can read policy geniuses comment on this all day long, but our attention spans are too short.  We want your input.

We want to hear some normal people's perspective on this state mandate. Either individuals or employers trying to provide benefits to their employees.

Is it working?  What is it doing to healthcare costs?  Is it being administered efficiently?  Is it better than what was in place before?  Who is getting rich off of it?  Things like that.  

We have put up a discussion forum on the subject at HSAeducator.com in their Forum section and invite real people to share their experiences.  To tell the rest of the world, the real story.

And for all of us outside the great state of Massachuttes, to ask questions about the program.   Why?  Because it or some version of it could be "coming to a theater or drive-in near you."

To give those outside the state an idea of what those in Massachusetts must have in their insurance plans to avoid penalties, below is the list:     

• A comprehensive set of services (e.g., doctors visits, hospital admissions, diagnostic surgery, mental health and prescription drug coverage).
• Doctor visits for preventive care that are not subject to a deductible.
•  A cap on annual deductibles of $2,000 for an individual and $4,000 for a family.
• For plans with up-front deductibles or co-insurance on core services, an annual maximum on out-of-pocket spending of no more than $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a family.
• No caps on total benefits for a particular illness or for a single year.
•  No policy that covers only a fixed dollar amount per day or stay in the hospital, with the patient responsible for all other charges.
•  For policies that have a separate prescription drug deductible, it cannot exceed $250 for an individual or $500 for a family.

Folks, we want to know The Good, The Bad, and The Buttugly of healthcare in Massachusetts today.  Click Here to get to the Forum   -  You will have to register when you get there if you are not already.