Neil, while part of what you say is correct, I still view being asked to choose between the two -- universal health care and a statewide insurance mandate -- as a presentation of false alternatives. Despite the fact that more and more states are clearly demonstrating their desire to regulate and subsidize larger swaths of the health insurance and care industries, the fact that doing so is the wrong move (for many reasons) remains the same.
Allow me to address your points on Massachusetts.
What Massachusetts residents now need from here is greater competition in the medical insurance and care markets, as well as the ability to buy insurance intended only to cover major events, in order to stop the inflation that's hurting people.
Unfortunately, a government mandate like the one currently in place will only serve to inhibit that development. In the simplest of economic terms, Massachusetts has created an inelastic demand for health insurance services -- every citizen must purchase it. Inelasticity of demand creates extreme pricing elasticity; in other words, if every single person must purchase a product, then there is no market factor (other than salary limits) keeping the price of that product or service at or below any level -- insurance providers can charge whatever amount they collectively choose to charge for their service, and are protected by the fact that citizens must purchase it, no matter what that price may be.
The fact that government will subsidize the citizenry in its fulfillment of the purchasing mandate (like in Massachusetts) simply means that insurance providers have more incentive to charge even higher rates, as providers are no longer limited to charging less than their customers' salaries will allow them to pay for. Instead, what they cannot get from customers themselves they can recoup from government, which, of course, has much deeper pockets than the citizenry. This combination of factors can easily reduce competition and cause runaway price increases (the "inflation that's hurting people" you mentioned above), as there is little incentive to make the service more affordable for anybody.
Further, in an inelastic market, there is little incentive to improve quality; after all, the product must be purchased regardless of its quality level, and in a single state like Massachusetts, there are not enough separate providers competing against each other to significantly affect the quality and pricing market in a positive way.