There's good news and there's bad news.
The good news is, Tennessee is not burdened by the government-run health care system that is devastating the budget of the state of Massachusetts.
The bad news is, the entire United States is being subjected to ObamaCare, which was modeled on the unsustainable Massachusetts system.
Massachusetts adopted its medical care program in 2006 with the goal of providing coverage to lots of uninsured people. Costs were an afterthought.
But gaining medical "coverage" does not necessarily mean uninsured residents of Massachusetts gained medical "access." Most Massachusetts family doctors are no longer even accepting new patients, and wait times to get an appointment have risen. Family physicians also are less likely to accept insurance provided through Massachusetts' government-run program than insurance from other sources. And lots of people are still going to emergency rooms -- at great cost -- for non-emergency care.
Now, a special commission appointed to look at skyrocketing medical costs in Massachusetts has estimated that per-capita health care spending in the state will rise from around $10,000 in 2010 to almost $18,000 by 2020!
"Rising costs threaten the stability of the state's landmark 2006 health care law," The Associated Press noted.
And how!
But what is Massachusetts' plan in the face of the alarming increases driven by its takeover of health care? Is it making immediate plans to repeal those failed policies?
Far from it! Instead, it is considering creating an "independent oversight panel" to determine which higher costs for care are "acceptable" and which are "unacceptable." And it is considering letting state bureaucrats step in and decide what the "right" price is for some medical procedures when insurers and doctors disagree.
So in effect, Massachusetts is considering having outside bureaucrats, who cannot possibly know all the factors that go into providing medical care, impose price controls. Of course, that would lead to reduced care when hospitals and physicians simply abandon some procedures that the state may deem too expensive.
We sympathize with the people of Massachusetts, who are trapped by the consequences of their state's government-run medical system. But we might save some pity for ourselves when Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and the rest of the nation face the equally negative consequences of ObamaCare.
"[T]he Massachusetts experiment offers an ominous preview of what lies ahead for the rest of the nation under ObamaCare ...," Sally Pipes, of the Pacific Research Institute, wrote for Forbes.com. "ObamaCare has the country positioned to repeat the Bay State's mistakes -- many more times over."
That is much to be regretted, and it explains why a majority of the states have sued in federal court to have unconstitutional ObamaCare overturned.
Whether that effort will succeed is uncertain.
But we're all in for big costs and reduced access to medical care if it fails.