Hospitals: Obama likes Mass. health plan

With President Barack Obama adopting the same buzzwords as hospital advocates who support Massachusetts’s landmark health insurance access program, those advocates are convinced that his vision for health care mirrors their own.
“President Barack Obama likes the Massachusetts health care reform model,” the Massachusetts Hospital Association wrote in a report to its members, citing Obama’s letter to Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Max Baucus, D-Conn., the two senators with jurisdiction over a potential national health care reform bill.
In his letter, Obama praises the concept of “shared responsibility” – cooperation between individuals, employers and government – to help finance such a plan. He also supports the idea of a “health insurance exchange,” similar to the state Connector Authority, a clearinghouse of health plans given a seal of approval by a state-appointed board.
In his letter, Obama wrote that he is open to a mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance, which Mass. leaders have described as essential to the state’s plan. In Massachusetts, 98 percent of residents have health insurance, the highest rate in the nation.