Last week, industry leaders and state officials mapped out broad strategies to combat a looming surge in uninsured residents that's unfolding amid skyrocketing health care costs. New Medicaid work requirements and more frequent redetermination requirements that will take effect in 2027 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are expected to result in over 300,000 residents to lose coverage through MassHealth and the Massachusetts Health Connector.

In recent years the state has far eclipsed HPC health care spending growth benchmarks metrics , putting pressure on individual, business and government health care payers. The benchmark was set at 3.6% for 2026, after the growth rate of total health care expenditures rose by 8.6% from 2022 to 2023. Massachusetts now posts "the highest family health insurance premiums in the country," and "the average annual cost of health care for a family exceeded $31,000, including out-of-pocket spending" in 2024, according to a letter in the hearing program from HPC Executive Director David Seltz and Board Chair Deborah Devaux. The average annual cost sharing per person increased from $849 in 2019 to $1,049 in 2023. The volume of residents paying $5,000 or more in annual cost sharing also doubled from 2019 to 2023.

The state will have their hands full trying to find ways to cut health care spending cuts in 2026 and beyond. Even the attorney General, Andrea Campbell is getting involved, saying during the meeting that she and her office are focused on monitoring the entry of new for-profit entities into Massachusetts to prevent another situation like the Steward Health Care bankruptcy crisis. The AG also expressed an openness to working with Beacon Hill and the Health Policy Commission.