. >> reporter: boston filmmaker deb dorsey, whose health nightmare became a documentary. >> i went throughr rounds of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation. then it turned out that the adriamycin that they had given me with the chemotherapy had done damage to my heart, and i went into heart failure. they said, "we think you're a candidate for a pacemaker." >> reporter: dorsey had health insurance through the company she owned with her filmmaker husband, who freelances for the newshour. but when the business tanked, dorsey's prior conditions put her in peril. >> me without insurance would have been a disaster because nobody would have insured me. >> reporter: disaster didn't happen. dorsey could buy insurance because of the massachusetts health law signed by republican governor mitt romney in 2006 and its online marketplace, the health connector. some quarter of a million people now get insurance from nine private companies. it's the model for the state exchanges being set up under the affordable care act. so, what is the connector, and how has it worked? >> good afternoon. thank you for