News at HSPHHSPH health policy expert Nancy Turnbull provided commentary on the October 25 Massachusetts gubernatorial debate on CommonHealth, a blog hosted by NPR Boston affiliate WBUR. The debate was short on the topic of state health care reform, so the blog’s editors asked Turnbull, senior lecturer in health policy and associate dean for educational programs at HSPH, along with Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, to provide perspective.
Turnbull challenged the cooperative model enacted by Democratic incumbent Deval Patrick’s administration, which allows small businesses and individuals to combine their insurance purchasing power to seek out lower premiums. Turnbull says it too early to tell whether the program will succeed, and that it could likely result in higher premiums for others. She was also skeptical of Green-Rainbow Party candidate’s Jill Stein claim that health care now represents 50 percent of the state budget, noting that the percentage is likely lower. But she agrees with both Patrick and Stein about the “urgent need” to moderate spending. “If we do not find ways to control the growth of health care spending, we will not have resources [for] other vital public services, many of which would increase health much more than additional spending on medical care (e.g., education),” she said.
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