Massachusetts’ RomneyCare Boosted Joint Replacements

Passage in 2006 of the Massachusetts health care reform—known as RomneyCare—led to a 4.7% increase in joint replacement procedures, according to a report by health care researchers.

Jessica Bartlett, a reporter for the Boston Business Journal quoted Amresj Hganchate, the first author of the study who now works for the Section of General Internal Medicine at BMC, and the Healthcare Disparities Research Program in the Department of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, as saying “There may have been a pent-up demand for these procedures among racial/ethnic minorities and once these patient populations received insurance, they were able to move forward with the procedures.”

The highest increase in hip or knee replacements was among Hispanics who recorded a 37.9% increase. The next highest increase was among Blacks who had an 11.4% increase. Whites increased their use of the surgery by 2.8%. The report stated that lower income was not associated with a higher use of the procedures.

Hanchate said that prior to the reform legislation; Massachusetts had a relatively good safety net program for its citizens. “Our finding of differential post-reform changes among racial/ethnic groups may be because access to and use of free care prior to reform may not have been uniformly effective across the groups, ” he said.