SAN FRANCISCO — The Massachusetts health insurance plan will cost Bay State taxpayers double what was originally claimed, disclosed a recent bond filing by the state of Massachusetts. Sally C. Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, reveals this and other findings in her just released study, “Questionable Cure for a Questionable Crisis: The Massachusetts Health Plan Takes Shape.” The new report closely examines the new state health plan and casts doubt on the premises underlying the program and its promise of universal health insurance coverage at affordable cost.

In April 2006, Massachusetts passed a law requiring residents to purchase health insurance or face fines. The plan originally claimed to cost taxpayers $125 million. But in a bond filing a few months after the bill’s passage, the administration revealed that the program would actually cost $276 million—more than double the stated amount. In addition, the program will provide $386 million in rate increases for hospitals, physicians, and managed care organizations.

“As the program’s cost explodes, tremendous pressure will build to increase taxes on both individuals and the businesses employing them to fund the program—this is even more likely with the election of a new liberal governor,” Ms. Pipes said. “Bay State residents must be prepared to digest a giant tax turkey of a health plan for Thanksgiving.”

Ms. Pipes added that the Massachusetts plan is unlikely to achieve its goal of near universal health insurance coverage. She notes that all but three states require drivers to have auto insurance, yet 14 percent of drivers remain uninsured. She believes that political pressure will undermine the enforcement of the mandate: “There is already a strong push to exempt everyone under 300 percent of the poverty level from the mandate because even the new, highly subsidized plans rolled out by the state are unaffordable.”

The Massachusetts health plan was also designed to help address the problem of the voluntarily uninsured, people who could afford insurance, but choose not to purchase it. “The reason that young healthy people don’t purchase health insurance isn’t because they want to free ride on the taxpayer,” said Ms. Pipes, “it’s because the regulations that proscribe gold-plated benefits and prevent medical underwriting make certain costs far outstrip the benefits.” The solution to this problem, she said, is to deregulate the market, not force people to purchase something they don’t value at artificially high prices.