Now entering its second year, The Basil Report is a weekly blog dedicated to dissecting all things political, run by WSPN’s own guru, junior Basil Halperin.

While Congress debates how to fix the health insurance crisis, a different predicament – one that will hit Massachusetts particularly hard – is growing.

Massachusetts has already solved one of two aspects of the healthcare crisis. First, there is the large number of Americans that don’t have health insurance. This is problematic for obvious reasons and is at the heart of reform being considered by Congress right now. Massachusetts, however, has already reformed the state’s insurance industry. As of June 2006, all Massachusetts residents are required to carry health insurance, and those who can’t afford it receive subsidies so that they afford it. We now have the highest coverage rate in the nation at over 97%.

However, Massachusetts, like the rest of the country, still must deal with the second aspect of the crisis: rising costs. Nationwide, approximately $2.4 trillion is spent on health care, or about a sixth of total gross domestic product (GDP). This number, already by far the highest in the world, is only growing; already, total national health expenditures have doubled since 1998. Not all of this is good spending. It is estimated that the US spends $650 billion more on health care than GDP trends would predict.

Just as the US spends an excessive amount on health care compared to other countries, Massachusetts spends more per person on health care than any other state, and spending here is growing faster than the national average. It is projected health care spending in Massachusetts will be $43 billion in 2010, and growth will average 6% over the next 10 years. This means, to stop health care costs from rising, Massachusetts must cut costs by an equivalent amount annually

How can we do that? First, we need to identify some of the factors that are driving up costs. Over the summer, I worked at the State House with Wayland’s own Representative Tom Conroy. There, we worked to write a preliminary report discussing factors that are significantly increasing the cost of health care. We identified five:

1. Unnecessary testing
2. Obesity
3. Medical malpractice lawsuits
4. Administrative costs
5. End of life care/Increased life expectancy

To thoroughly delve into these issues here would require more time than you or I have. Let it suffice to say that when the legislature takes up health care cost-cutting measures over the next few months, they should keep these factors in mind.