Massachusetts health care reform’s 18th birthday: All-time high Massachusetts Health Connector enrollment, more than 1 million people covered in the last decade
April 12, 2024 – The Massachusetts Health Connector is celebrating today’s 18th anniversary of health care reform in Massachusetts, highlighting all-time high enrollment in health and dental plans, and providing health insurance to more than 1.1 million Massachusetts residents since 2015. Today, 350,000 Massachusetts residents get their health or dental coverage (or both) through the Health Connector, the most in the Marketplace’s history. This includes more than 250,000 in ConnectorCare coverage, the Health Connector’s landmark subsidized health insurance program. “Massachusetts’s historic health care reform law was signed into law on April 12, 2006, and not only created new opportunities for Massachusetts residents to access affordable health coverage, it also served as the model for national reform and the Affordable Care Act,” said Audrey Morse Gasteier, the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Health Connector. “Over just the last decade, more than 1 million Massachusetts residents have relied the Health Connector at some point for the coverage they needed, and today more than 21 million people are in ACA plans due to what Massachusetts proved was possible nearly two decades ago.” Massachusetts’s health care reform law, known as Chapter 58, created the Health Connector and the concept of an insurance marketplace that could connect easily residents of all incomes to comprehensive health coverage if they did not have access to coverage through a job or another program, like Medicaid or Medicare. The Health Connector also created a model for delivering subsidized coverage to state residents who qualify. Originally known as Commonwealth [...]