November 10, 2026
The Affordability Imperative: Securing a Sustainable Health Care Future
The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission (HPC) holds the Health Care Cost Trends Hearing each year to examine the drivers of health care costs and consider the challenges and opportunities for improving care and affordability across the Commonwealth’s health care system.
The Annual Health Care Cost Trends Hearing offers an important opportunity to examine current trends and challenges facing the health care system and residents in Massachusetts. This year’s hearing will focus on the critical importance of advancing bold, comprehensive health care policy reform in the Commonwealth in the face of rising health care costs and threats to access and coverage. Urgent action is needed to ensure that Massachusetts remains a national leader in safeguarding health care affordability for its residents.
Recent polls have found that Americans rank health care costs as their number one affordability challenge, outranking housing, food, utilities, and gasoline. Health care spending has grown even faster in Massachusetts than in the rest of the country, and in 2024, the Commonwealth had the highest family health insurance premiums in the country. That same year, the average annual cost of health care for a family exceeded $32,000 (including out-of-pocket spending). As health care spending grows as a portion of household income, more and more families incur medical debt, and forgo needed care due to cost.
Workforce constraints, financial volatility, high prescription drug costs, and persistent health disparities amplify the Commonwealth’s health care affordability and sustainability challenges, compounded by recent federal policy changes that will reduce support for the state’s health care programs and are projected to increase the number of uninsured.
The 2026 Health Care Cost Trends Hearing will bring together industry leaders, policymakers, clinicians, and community members to reflect on the policy reforms necessary to advance the Commonwealth’s health care affordability, access, and equity goals, including the recommendations put forth by the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s Health Care Affordability Working Group (HCAWG).
Location
Suffolk University Law School
120 Tremont Street, Boston
Registration
The hearing is open to members of the public to attend in-person or watch via livestream. Registrants will be asked to select either the in-person or virtual attendance option. In-person registration does not guarantee seating.
Materials
Additional materials will be posted as soon as they are available.
Testimony
Each year, the HPC calls for written pre-filed testimony to inform the hearing. The pre-filed testimony affords the HPC and the Office of the Attorney General (AGO), on behalf of the public, an opportunity to engage with a broad range of Massachusetts health care market participants.
Request for Written Testimony - CMS
All written testimony is a public record and will be posted online as it is received.
Location
Suffolk University Law School
120 Tremont Street, Boston