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Affordable Care Act Critics Often Misinterpret Massachusetts Health Reform
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Affordable Care Act Critics Often Misinterpret Massachusetts Health Reform

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act often attack it by distorting the facts about Massachusetts's experience with health reform.

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The Affordable Care Act was signed into law one year ago. It is modeled in large part on the landmark Massachusetts health reform law enacted four years earlier in 2006. Opponents of the Affordable Care Act often attack it by distorting the facts about the Massachusetts experience. They selectively alternate between snapshots of and trends in Massachusetts and comparisons between Massachusetts and the United States.

The most appropriate way to assess the impact of the Massachusetts law is to compare changes over time in things like health coverage and premium costs in Massachusetts to changes over time in the United States as a whole. In our issue brief, "Myth vs. Fact: Health Care Reform in Massachusetts," we use that approach to debunk many of the myths opponents propagate regarding Massachusetts’s experience with health care reform.

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