Report: Health Care Reformers Should Look To Mass.

A Harvard researcher says health care reformers should take some cues from Massachusetts.

Politics and health policy professor Robert Blendon co-authored a new report that compares today’s reform attempts to President Clinton’s in 1994. He says the atmosphere isn’t much different. Americans won’t support reform unless they’re convinced they’ll get help paying for insurance requirements.

That’s where Massachusetts can serve as a model — the only state where the public has accepted major reform.

“It has been accepted here because so many employers provide their employees insurance and for most people there are subsidies that are quite substantial for them to purchase insurance,” Blendon said. “So the bottom line is, it seems affordable.”

Blendon says proponents of an overhaul should also articulate how reform will benefit average Americans with big bills, not just those with rare or dramatic illnesses.