No. (I hope you were sitting down.) Writes Politico:
Health care costs per capita were 27 percent higher in Massachusetts than in the rest of the country in 2004, two years before the state plan was signed, Holtz-Eakin says. By 2009, it was 30 percent higher than the national average.
The law’s failure to rein in health care costs is widely acknowledged by nonpartisan analysts, as well as conservative critics. But there’s more material for critics to work with if either party wanted to use it. For example, emergency room use has gone up, not down — undermining the law’s effort to get that problem under control by expanding coverage.
State health policy officials issued a report last month showing a 6 percent increase in emergency room use from 2006 to 2010, the first four years when the law was in effect. That figure has confounded proponents of the law, who hoped emergency room care would plummet when residents had access to insurance and primary-care doctors.
Detractors in the Bay State also say the law has done little to dent the surging demand seen by the state’s largest safety-net hospitals.
It’s getting harder for Massachusetts residents to see a doctor, too.