Report offers snapshot of Mass. health insurance

DATE: July 29, 2016

MassHealth and Medicare each provided primary health insurance coverage for more than 1 million Massachusetts residents from December 2013 to March 2016, while around 4 million Bay Staters were covered by private commercial insurance, according to a new report from a state agency.

More than 160,000 of those covered by commercial insurance received subsidies, according to the July 2016 Enrollment Trends report from the Center for Health Information and Analysis. Enrollment in subsidized private commercial plans doubled from March 2015 to March 2016, "as Massachusetts residents increasingly purchased coverage through the Massachusetts Health Connector," the report said.

The report found that commercial health insurance membership "continued to be highly concentrated" as of March, with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts administering private or public coverage for one quarter of the state's residents.

Approximately 1.3 million Massachusetts residents relied on MassHealth for their primary medical coverage, with another 546,000 residents receiving primary or secondary coverage through the state Medicaid program, the report said.