The Foundation has been focused on access to care from its inception and continues its work to improve access to quality health care in the post-health-reform era. Our first major initiative, Roadmap to Coverage, examined the impact of uninsurance in the state and proposed evidence-based policy solutions. Our current initiative, Care Beyond Coverage, studies non-coverage-related barriers to accessing health care.

Related Publications

• A Convening of Grantees on the Commonwealth Care Bridge Program
  February 09, 2010
  In August, 2009, legal immigrants who have been in the United State for fewer than five years lost their eligibility for health insurance coverage under Commonwealth Care. They now receive coverage under the Bridge Program. In December, the BCBSMA Foundation brought together grantees, government officials, advocates, and health insurers for an informal discussion about how and why these changes were made, and how to improve coverage for legal immigrants.
• 2008 Year-End Report of Connecting Consumers with Care Grantees
  December 09, 2009
  This report summarizes the work of the 2008 grantees in the Connecting Consumers with Care grant program area.
• Accessing Children's Mental Health Services in Massachusetts: Workforce Capacity Assessment
  October 29, 2009
  This report is based on a survey of 1,982 mental health providers in Massachusetts including psychiatrists, psychiatric clinical nurse specialists, psychologists, social workers, mental health counselors, and marriage and family therapists. It estimates the need for children’s mental health services; assesses child and family mental health service delivery capacity; identifies variation in capacity, including variation by geography, linguistic ability, and cultural competence; and documents challenges to meeting current demand for services.
• Who Seeks Emergency Care And Why?: Data From Massachusetts
  September 24, 2009
  This policy brief based on data from the 2008 Massachusetts Health Reform Survey shows that while health reform in Massachusetts has succeeded in increasing health insurance coverage and access to care, use of emergency departments by working-age residents remains high. Those seeking care in EDs may have trouble accessing care in other settings. They are less likely to use a doctor’s office or private clinic as their usual source of care and they are somewhat less likely to report having a place they usually go to (other than the ED) when they are sick or need advice about their health. And frequent users of emergency rooms (those reporting more than three ED visits in a year) are a sicker, more disabled and chronically ill population than other adults in the state.
• Access to and Affordability of Care in Massachusetts as of Fall 2008: Geographic and Racial/Ethnic Differences (Revised)
  August 04, 2009
  This policy brief by Sharon Long of The Urban Institute measures geographic and racial disparities in access to health care in Massachusetts. The data in the brief comes from the third annual Massachusetts Health Reform Survey. This revised version of the policy brief, which was originally published May 28, 2009, reflects changes made after an error in constructing survey weights was discovered and corrected. These changes do not impact the basic findings and conclusions in the original policy brief with respect to geographic differences; however, it does lead to more evidence of racial/ethnic differences in the affordability of health care in Massachusetts.
• Testimony On Health Care Affordability For the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing By The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation
  June 24, 2009
  The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation was invited by the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing to offer testimony on the affordability of health care. Foundation Director of Policy and Research Shanna Shulman, Ph.D. offered the following testimony.
• Testimony On Health Care Disparities For the Joint Committee On Public Health By The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation
  June 09, 2009
  The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation was invited by the Joint Committee on Public Health to offer testimony about health care disparities. Foundation President Jarrett T. Barrios and Foundation Associate Director of Grantmaking and Evaluation Miriam Messinger offered the following findings from the Foundation's policy research and grantmaking programs.
• Access To Health Care In Massachusetts: The Landscape In 2009. Presentation by John Snow, Inc. at 2009 Summit on Access.
  May 28, 2009
  Presentation made by John Snow, Inc. at the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation's annual Summit on Access May 28, 2009. The presentation summarizes a year of investigation into barriers to health care access that consisted of a literature review, focus groups, interviews with health access experts, and a survey of the newly-insured. This research is part of the Foundation's Care Beyond Coverage policy initiative.
• An Update on Health Reform In Massachusetts As Of Fall 2008: Access To and Affordability of Health Care. Presentation by Sharon K. Long, Ph.D. at the 2009 Summit on Access.
  May 28, 2009
  Presentation made by Sharon Long of The Urban Institute at the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation's annual Summit on Access May 28, 2009. The presentation summarizes the results of the third annual Massachusetts Health Reform Survey.
• 2008 Annual Report
  May 28, 2009
  Care Beyond Coverage: The Next Generation of Health Reform
• Network Adequacy in the Commonwealth Care Program
  April 22, 2009
• Shared Responsibility, Government, Business, and Individuals: Who Pays What for Health Reform?
  April 14, 2009
  This report is the first assessment of how spending to insure hundreds of thousands of additional people in the Commonwealth is being shared. It finds that the overall distribution of spending on health insurance by employers, individuals, and government remained essentially the same between 2005, one year before passage of the 2006 Massachusetts health reform law, and 2007, one year into the law’s implementation.
• Massachusetts Health Reform: A Public Perspective From Debate Through Implementation
  October 28, 2008
  An examination of public opinion in Massachusetts toward health reform from 2003 through 2008.
• After The Mandates: Massachusetts Employers Continue To Support Health Reform As More Firms Offer Coverage
  October 28, 2008
  An examination of employers' responses to the implementation of the Massachusetts health reform law and whether or not "crowd out" has occured.
• Who Gained the Most Under Health Reform in Massachusetts?
  October 01, 2008
  An eight-page issue brief that analyzes the impacts of health reform on insurance coverage across different population groups in the state. Specifically, it examines differences in insurance coverage by demographic characteristics (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, and gender), health status, employment, and geography.