Massachusetts

In 2000, Massachusetts received HRSA State Planning Grant funds to conduct an in-depth analysis of the public and private health insurance market and began developing feasible policy options that would allow the state to develop affordable coverage options for all Massachusetts residents within the existing health insurance structure. The major issue that the project addressed is affordability. The project goals included:

• Defining "affordable" for residents based on income and household size;
• Defining "adequate benefits" (including cost-sharing) to serve as a benchmark based on the most prevalent insurance products (using subscribers, affordability, and consumer preferences as categories);
• Identifying existing and potential barriers to insurance coverage (e.g. affordability, awareness, risk-taking behavior, competing priorities); and
• Developing proposals for achieving universal access to affordable health insurance that support and enhance the private insurance market while ensuring that the safety net of public programs is available for those who need it.