About the Commonwealth Health Connector Insurance Authority
The Massachusetts Health Connector is the country’s first and longest running state-based marketplace, having been created in 2006 to provide high-value coverage to individuals and small businesses in the Commonwealth and to serve as a policy and outreach hub for both state and federal health reforms designed to expand and improve coverage.
The Health Connector’s nearly 18-year history allows it to draw from a rich set of experiences and lessons acquired in the several ‘chapters’ of its existence, first as a state-designed independent public entity at the forefront of the state’s pioneering health reform law, Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006, and later as an ACA-compliant state-based marketplace (SBM) when the federal reform law that was heavily influenced by Massachusetts’s approach to coverage expansion and insurance market reform was implemented.
Even within those two key chapters of marketplace experience lays a multitude of program and policy experiences and lessons that have shaped the present-day Health Connector, including the coverage it provides to over a quarter million Massachusetts residents and the role it plays in the wider health care landscape in the Commonwealth.
Mission statement
Advance access to high-quality health care by serving as a transparent and transformative health insurance Marketplace for Massachusetts residents and small businesses to come together and easily find, compare, and enroll in affordable health coverage.
Vision Statement
Serve as the leading state-based health insurance Marketplace in the nation by upholding the Commonwealth’s near universal health coverage rate and making it as easy as possible for all residents to enroll in and maintain high-value health insurance coverage.
Values
- Person-centeredness: The real lives of residents of the Commonwealth who rely on Health Connector coverage or are touched by its policies, and how their needs differ based on lived experience, will remain at the center of all program design, policy-making, and operational decisions.
- Equity: Health Connector practices and policies will advance equitable access to comprehensive health coverage and health coverage that promotes equitable health outcomes.
- Value: Health Connector coverage will provide members with meaningful access to health services with minimal barriers due to cost, while centering the importance of an economically sustainable health care system and being good stewards of public (state and federal) resources.
- Reliability: The Health Connector will serve as a reliable and trustworthy source of coverage to the residents it serves, and as a dependable and steady business and policy partner to its stakeholders.