Nonprofit may pick up Commonwealth Care Alliance business
BOSTON (SHNS) – With insurance provider Commonwealth Care Alliance at risk of an impending financial collapse, Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh said Monday that the state will have 'very good news' this week for the 46,000 low-income and disabled Bay Staters who rely on it and teased that a different provider plans to expand into Massachusetts to fill the gap.
'They are, in their current corporate form, really struggling from a financial standpoint. We have spent, and the MassHealth team has spent, enormous amounts of time working to try to stabilize that insurance plan,' Walsh said at a budget hearing in Attleboro on Monday.
Walsh added, 'We encouraged everybody we could find to look at that program, and most people were quite dismayed about what they saw about their financial management. We have been working with a potential solution, working very hard to get a potential solution to that problem.'
CCA insures about 46,000 disabled and low-income people in Massachusetts, Walsh said, and it also functions as a service provider for some of the people it serves. Its financial picture is in bad shape after the company expanded its model from Massachusetts into four other states 'where they lost their shirt,' the secretary said. The Boston Globe has previously reported on the state's efforts to prepare for a potential collapse of CCA.
'I think we'll have very good news this week on that,' Walsh told the Joint Ways and Means Committee. 'So that the 46,000 people who have relied on that insurance plan will go into a different plan that will have many of the same characteristics. It will be not-for-profit, it will be very experienced in caring for people with these kinds of challenges. Their references from other states are excellent, so fingers crossed.'
Walsh did not provide additional details, but said the company being tapped to take over the CCA population 'will expand into Massachusetts.'
CCA declined to comment Monday on Walsh's comments or the impending announcement.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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