The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a center-right budget watchdog group, has a post about Governor Baker's new budget that has some national implications in respect of the urgency of Washington taking some action on health care:
In the past six years, MassHealth enrollment has increased from 1.3M to 1.9M... spending on the program doubled from $8.7B to $16.5B. MassHealth currently accounts for over 40% of the state's budget.
MassHealth is the state's version of Medicaid, the health insurance that covers the poor. Baker is a former health insurance executive, so he has some expertise in the area and might be able to get a handle on it if he can get the Democrat-controlled legislature to cooperate rather than demagogue the "cuts" as a political bludgeon against Baker, who is up for re-election in 2018.
