Three years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted a far-reaching health reform law that politicians and the media hailed as a model for other states and the federal government. Indeed that law has become the major blueprint for health system change on a national scale, and its advocates are aggressively marketing some variation of the Massachusetts plan as the reform of choice. Until recently, there has been little analysis of how the law has worked. This is the second in an occasional series of posts that will explore the Massachusetts law with an eye toward helping the press and the public understand the flashpoints as legislation based on the Bay State’s experiment winds its way through Congress. The entire series is archived here.

Last summer, The Boston Globe reported on a poll by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation that examined what Massachusetts residents think about the state’s health insurance law. “Support for law varies, poll shows,” read the Globe’s headline. The lede went further:

More than two-thirds of Massachusetts residents support the state’s two-year-old near-universal health insurance law, according to a new poll, but consumers most directly affected by the law are significantly less enthusiastic.

The Globe reported that 69 percent of those surveyed backed the law while only 52 percent of those who have been affected by it did. Most residents didn’t want to scrap the law, although an increasing number said it was hurting some groups that it was supposed to help, like the poor, the uninsured, and small businesses.

The paper, however, left out a crucial stat—only 37 percent of residents who are affected by the law (that is, those who were uninsured, had to get insurance, or change coverage) actually support the law’s sine qua non, its individual mandate. Fifty-six percent of those affected opposed the mandate, while 6 percent said they didn’t know. An enforceable individual mandate is emerging as the centerpiece of any national health reform effort, so knowing the opinions of those people most affected is important in selling such a requirement to the American public—including the nearly 50 million now uninsured.

Those opinions are not often reported these days, since the press tends to unquestioningly accept the positive spin from the law’s numerous cheerleaders. In a report issued last December, the Foundation, which mothered the law into existence, noted:

The majority of residents even favored the individual mandate, a very controversial aspect of the new law. The survey found that nearly 60 percent supported the mandate, even though it requires nearly all residents to obtain health coverage.

Ah, the 58 percent figure! But where was the more telling number—the 37 percent affected by the law who did not favor the mandate? Not in the report.

Since the press has a penchant for official pronouncements, it’s not surprising that two stories NBC Nightly News aired in early January gave viewers the impression the law was an overwhelming success. “The health reform effort has exceeded the expectations of those who backed it,” correspondent Robert Bazell reported. To make his point, he featured a young woman with breast cancer who was now able to pay for treatment. But this woman’s story had already been told, in an upbeat 2007-2008 progress report published by the state’s Health Insurance Connector Authority, which governs the program. Bazell told his viewers: “With the experience of people like Jaclyn Michalos [the patient], it’s not hard to see why the program is so popular.”