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Massachusetts could be a canary in the coal mine of the nation’s health care reform.

The New England state has been experimenting since 2006 with ways to reform its health care system. A big part of the goal is to get to universal health care — every person in the state covered by health care insurance. Gov. Deval Patrick says his state is close to being there.

Pres. Barack Obama and many members of Congress also favor universal health care for the nation.

Its latest proposal is to pay doctors a set amount that would cover a patients medical care for a whole year, according to the Boston Globe.

Currently, insurers pay doctors and hospitals a negotiated fee for each procedure or visit. Critics say this encourages over-use and waste of health care.

The current system rewards doctors for the quantity of care they provide rather than quality of care.

Massachusetts’ Special Commission on the Health Care Payment System plan to urge Gov. Patrick and the legislature to become the first state to adopt a system that would put doctors and hospitals on a budget to restrain health care spending, the Globe said.

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• Department of Health and Human Services: Fiscal Year 2010 Budget in Brief, May 7, 2009 (pdf)
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