Squeaker in Mass. Health Plan Ratings

You may not feel yourself overflowing with love and appreciation as you pay your premium, but the fact is that several Massachusetts insurance plans are considered excellent — in fact, tops. (Our premiums also tend to be higher than elsewhere, by the way.) Massachusetts dominated the top ten in the latest national rankings that the non-profit National Committee for Quality Assurance issued. The top of the rankings looked like this:

1. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

2. Tufts Associated Health Maintenance Organization

3. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of New England

4. Capital Health Plan

5. Geisinger Health Plan

6. Grand Valley Health Plan

7. Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin

8. Fallon Community Health Plan

9. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colorado

10. Health New England

11. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts

All the top-rated Massachusetts plans are non-profits. And just a bit of inside baseball: If you look at the complete list here, you'll see that Harvard Pilgrim edged out Tufts for the top spot by just a hair: an overall ranking of 90.5 vs. 90.4. Last year's scores followed a similar pattern, and the two plans have been neck-and-neck at the top for five years now. Readers, what do you think is up?