The newspaper, The Springfield Republican, reports that Massachusetts has become the first state to adopt a policy denying health insurance payments for 28 categories of medical errors that should never occur if adequate care and treatment is provided to patients. Five state agencies that collectively insure more than 1.6 million residents, will participate in the policy. The agencies are the state's Office of Medicaid, Health Safety Net, Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, Group Insurance Commission, and the Department of Correction. Amongst the types of medical errors that will cause payment to be withheld are medication errors resulting in death or permanent disability, surgery on the wrong patient, and surgery on the wrong body part. After the new policy has been in place for awhile, I hope that the Commonwealth conducts a careful comparison of error rates in the listed categories of errors, before and after the policy change. It has always been my belief that nothing spurs medical reform like dollars and cents. If the policy significantly reduces errors, other states can be expected to follow Massachusetts’ lead.