Massachusetts can stand as a model for the U.S. in health care debate

Look at what happened when the Clinton administration gave it a roll back in 1993. Look at the struggle the Obama administration had getting something through Congress, even with Democratic majorities in both houses. Look at the rocky road to reform in Massachusetts back in 2006.

The federal law is complex almost beyond imagining. And it doesn't even fully take effect until 2014 – assuming that it survives myriad legal challenges.

But when broken down to its component parts, there are only two problems that all attempts at reform are looking to address: coverage and cost. Too many people are [...]

General Introduction About Massachusetts

Massachusetts is unique among states because its history and culture predate and epitomize the experiences of the country as a whole. It is commonly known that the Puritans and Pilgrims set the stage for eventual liberty of religious belief when they fled an oppressive government to settle in the New World. With such documents as the Mayflower Compact (1620) and the Body of Liberties (1641), an early code of law, they provided the basis for the concept that governments should rule by consent of the governed and with guarantees to protect individual expression.

These notions of individual liberty came into conflict with the colonies' status as part of the British Empire. The American Revolution originated in Massachusetts with the first resistance against British colonial rules. It was in Massachusetts that the colonists raised [...]

Manufacturing, trade, and other services in Massachusetts

The maritime trade dominated Massachusetts's economy for 200 years because of the state's poor agriculture. "Massachusetts went to sea…not of choice, but of necessity," wrote historian Samuel Eliot Morison in The Maritime History of Massachusetts (1921). Also of importance to Massachusetts sailors was the West Indies trade, a paramount market for New England goods. It was from the profits of the maritime trade that great fortunes were made by families who became known as the Brahmins. After the War of 1812, these merchant families used their profits as capital to bring the Industrial Revolution to the state. Massachusetts had had some manufacturing since the early 1640s. Francis Cabot Lowell was largely responsible, however, for raising the state to its manufacturing eminence. [...]