Family health care tops $34,000 a year in Massachusetts and takes a bigger bite of South Coast pay
Premiums in the Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton area are among the lowest in Massachusetts, but measured against local pay, health costs eat a bigger share, and Southcoast Health warned the commission of Medicaid cuts coming in January.
SOUTH COAST The average Massachusetts family's health care cost more than $34,000 last year, a state agency reported Tuesday, and on the South Coast it takes a bigger share of pay than in most of the state.
The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission put the 2025 total at $34,162, or $2,846 a month, at its annual Health Care Cost Trends Hearing on Tuesday, Nov. 10. That figure counts the full family premium for job-based coverage, $29,619 including what employers pay, plus $4,543 in average out-of-pocket costs.
The commission's maps, which break the state into areas by the first three digits of the ZIP code, show why the bill lands harder here. Family premiums in the 027 area, home to Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton, averaged about $25,100 in 2024, among the lowest in Massachusetts. But measured against what families earn, the area's health costs are among the heaviest in the state.
A bigger share of South Coast pay
The commission's affordability index divides a family's premiums and deductibles by median household income plus the worker's share of the premium. For the 027 area it came to 25.9% in 2024, according to the commission's presentation, so premiums and deductibles took about a quarter of what the commission counts as total compensation.
That is about the same as Cape Cod's 25.8% and higher than 11 of the commission's 15 areas, including 24.7% in the 025 area that takes in Wareham and 22.1% in the 023 area around Brockton, Plymouth and Middleborough. The lowest share in the state was 15.5%. Only three areas ranked higher, at 28.7% to 31.5%: the Springfield and Pittsfield areas and the 013 area around Greenfield. The commission's headline finding said health care is least affordable on Cape Cod and in the central and western parts of the state.
A separate chart in the presentation compares each region's family health care costs with the cost of renting a two-bedroom home. For the region the commission labels South Coast, the health care bar runs thousands of dollars a year above the housing bar, as it does in most of the state.
Costs growing faster than pay
Statewide, family premiums for job-based coverage grew from $7,000 a year in 2000 to nearly $30,000 in 2025, among the highest in the country, the commission said. They rose 38% from 2019 to 2025, compared with 28% in the rest of the country, and would reach $50,000 by 2032 if they keep growing at recent rates.
From 2022 to 2025, premiums in Massachusetts grew 8.3% a year while household income grew 3.9%, the commission found. For 10% of families, 2025 premiums topped $41,000. Premiums for people and small businesses buying in the state's merged market rose 11.5% in 2026 and are set to rise 10.4% in 2027, according to Division of Insurance figures in the presentation.
Using 2024 data, the commission estimated that a family of four with $122,000 in total earnings and job-based family coverage that gets a 4% raise would see about 40% of the raise absorbed by rising health care costs. It also cited state survey data showing 28% of residents said they or a family member went without needed care because of cost, and 13.5% have family medical debt, nearly nine in 10 of them taking it on while they had insurance.
What Southcoast Health told the commission
Southcoast Health, which runs Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford and Tobey Hospital in Wareham, filed sworn written testimony for the hearing in October. It wrote that 76% of its patients are covered by government health programs, the sixth highest public payer mix in Massachusetts, and listed "low commercial reimbursement rates" among its challenges.
"Southcoast Health is a Community High Public Payer Hospital that is currently feeling financial pressure, with more to come in early 2027," the system wrote, pointing to "looming Medicaid cuts in January 2027" and projecting that more uninsured and underinsured patients will strain its emergency departments and inpatient units. It said Fall River, New Bedford and Wareham have the fifth, 12th and 26th highest Social Vulnerability Index scores among the state's 351 cities and towns, and that New Bedford is officially designated a Health Professional Shortage Area as the system tries to recruit primary care providers.
The system described a mobile program run with Fall River EMS that sends community paramedics into patients' homes, which it said has made more than 800 home visits this year. South Coast 360 is asking Southcoast Health how patients can request a price estimate and how it expects the January Medicaid changes to affect its patients.
What you can do
Massachusetts law requires providers to give patients price information for admissions, procedures and services when asked, the attorney general's office noted in its questions to health care providers for the hearing. Southcoast Health reported about 1,900 such price requests by phone or in person from January 2024 through June 2026, rising from 150 a quarter in 2024 to 250 a quarter this year.
People who buy their own coverage can compare 2027 plans now. How Health Connector open enrollment works.
What the state is doing
The commission's hearing took up proposals from Gov. Maura Healey's Health Care Affordability Working Group, which in August recommended steps on out-of-network charges, prescription drug prices, workforce shortages, primary care, administrative costs and preventable hospital stays. Healey also signed an executive order directing MassHealth to raise its primary care spending to 12% of total medical spending by the end of 2028, according to the presentation.
Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.
Notes
Every fact comes from the Health Policy Commission's Nov. 10 release and hearing presentation and from Southcoast Health's pre-filed testimony for the hearing, all posted on the commission's website. We read them on Nov. 12. The ZIP area premiums and affordability figures are read from the commission's maps. The 027 area premium is rounded to about $25,100 because the last digit on the map is partly covered by a coastline. The 2024 figures are the latest on the maps, and the $34,162 statewide total is for 2025. Calling the merged market the market for people and small businesses buying their own coverage is our plain wording. The Health Connector line rests on our earlier open enrollment story. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar.
Corrections
No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.
Sources (4)
- Massachusetts Health Policy Commission: Cost of Health Care for Massachusetts Families Tops $34,000, Underscoring Deepening Affordability Crisis (press release)Published Nov. 10, 2026. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Massachusetts Health Policy Commission: 2026 Health Care Cost Trends Hearing presentation, The Affordability Imperative (slides 9 to 17 and 19 to 22)Presented Nov. 10, 2026. ZIP area figures read from the maps on slides 13 and 14 and the regional chart on slide 15. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Southcoast Health: 2026 pre-filed testimony to the Health Policy Commission and the Office of the Attorney General, signed under the pains and penalties of perjuryAttested October 2026; posted on the commission's testimony page. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Massachusetts Health Policy Commission: 2026 Health Care Cost Trends Hearing materials (agenda, presentation, testimony)Read Nov. 12, 2026.