Mass. Health Insurance Law Lowering Emergency Room Visits

A new report shows that a key goal of the Massachusetts landmark health care law is being met.

The law was designed to mandate health care for nearly all Massachusetts citizens, in part by offering subsidized insurance programs to poor and lower income residents.

One goal was to reduce the number of emergency room hospital visits by uninsured people.

The new report by the Massachusetts Hospital Association finds that the number of so-called “free care” visits to hospitals have declined by 28 percent over the past three years.

That mirrors the increase in enrollment in subsidized health care programs created under the law.

But the report also found the reduction in free care hospital visits has been uneven across different regions of the state.