Deaths fell in Massachusetts after health overhaul

May 6 (Bloomberg) — Expanding health insurance coverage in Massachusetts helped reduce deaths, a Harvard University study found, suggesting that Obamacare may help save lives as it’s rolled out nationwide.

Massachusetts enacted comprehensive health coverage in 2006, serving as a model for the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare. The state reported about 3 percent fewer deaths in the four years after the overhaul than previously, according to researchers from the Harvard University School of Public Health. The study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found no similar decline in death rates in other states that hadn’t enacted health reform.