Universal Health Insurance Massachusetts

The nation's first law requiring people to maintain health insurance faces its biggest test: Will the remaining 375,000 or so uninsured residents of Massachusetts buy health insurance policies?

Signs of the state's push for people to buy health insurance coverage are everywhere.

The pressure is on because the number of uninsured who sign up is key to the law's success: If large numbers of people flout the law, premiums could rise faster in future years, and the goal of cutting the number of uninsured to near zero would be lost.

Sunday marked a largely symbolic but important deadline — the date when nearly everyone in Massachusetts was required to have health insurance coverage, whether through their jobs, on their own (individual health insurance) or through a new program offering subsidized health coverage to low-income residents.

Requirements that residents buy health insurance are being proposed elsewhere: Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has promoted it as part of his health insurance plan, as has Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards. Another presidential contender, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has said parents should be required to carry health insurance for their kids. Republican Mitt Romney, also running for the presidential nomination, helped get Massachusetts' mandate passed in April 2006, when he was the state's governor.