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The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation has awarded $1,967,500 in grants to 50 community organizations in Massachusetts whose missions include promoting the health care needs of uninsured and low-income residents. The grants, which range from $20,000 to $75,000, will be used to fund a range of activities that promote access to coverage and care.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation has appointed Owen Heleen as Senior Director of Grantmaking, and Anna Gosline as Director of Policy and Research. Heleen has served for more than a decade with The Rhode Island Foundation, most recently as Vice President for Grant Programs, and Gosline has been project manager for an examination of Vermont's health care system that culminated in recommendations for comprehensive, “single-payer” health reform.

By a wide margin, Massachusetts residents consider rising costs to be the most serious problem facing the state's health care system and view excessive charges as major culprits. Nearly nine in 10 members of the public say it is important for state government to take “major action” on rising health care costs, but they also believe that government, insurers, hospitals, doctors, and individuals all need to be involved in solving the problem.

December 20, 2011 – The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation today announced that eleven medical journalists from across the nation have been selected for the 2012 class of the Health Coverage Fellowship.

Five years after the enactment of Massachusetts health reform, gains in residents’ access to needed health care have been sustained and first-time reductions in emergency room visits suggest improvements in the effectiveness of health care delivery in the state. These are among the findings from the latest Massachusetts Health Reform Survey, which has tracked the impact of reform since fall 2006. The survey, commissioned by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, is the basis for Health Reform in Massachusetts as of Fall 2010, a report written by researchers from the Urban Institute and the University of Minnesota. Also released today as a Web First was a related article published by the journal Health Affairs, which will also appear in the journal’s February issue.