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Healey vows to remove prior authorizations, ban medical debt reporting and form affordability working group
Summary
Governor Maura Healey said Massachusetts will eliminate prior authorization for certain treatments, ban medical debt from credit reporting, cap cost-sharing, and convene a cross-sector health care affordability working group to pursue further reforms.
Governor Maura Healey used her address to emphasize reducing health-care costs and improving access to timely care, laying out immediate policy directions and a call for cross-sector coordination.
"Starting this year, you won't need a prior authorization from any insurance company to get the care you need," Healey said, citing examples such as insulin and insulin pumps to explain prior-authorization barriers that delay treatment. She said that eliminating unnecessary prior authorizations would reduce delays in care and save patients time and money.
Healey also announced a proposal to ban "nasty medical debt" from being reported to credit agencies and reaffirmed earlier actions to cap deductibles and co-pays. To coordinate reforms, she directed leaders across key sectors to form a health care affordability working group.
The governor said the state recently acted to keep roughly 270,000 families and small businesses from a major insurance-premium spike; she framed the new steps as extensions of that work. The address did not include statutory citations or bill numbers for the prior-authorization or medical-debt proposals; they were presented as administration policy priorities that will need legislative or regulatory action to implement.
