Last April, the Massachusetts health-care reform bill was signed into law by Governor Mitt Romney. This legislation is intended to substantially reduce the number of uninsured in the state. The plan primarily relies on three policy tools. It requires that all state residents purchase health insurance. It offers income-related subsidies to help make insurance premiums more affordable. Finally, it launches an innovative insurance-purchasing mechanism called “the connector” that is supposed to improve the variety of insurance choices available for small businesses and individuals without access to employer-sponsored coverage.

As implementation of this new health-care law continues to unfold, Mark V. Pauly, Bendheim Professor at the Wharton School, will outline which features of the plan will travel beyond the Massachusetts border and which ones need to be reconsidered or discarded before similar reforms are implemented in other states. A panel of health-care policymakers and professionals will discuss the lessons learned from the Massachusetts legislation for covering the uninsured.