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Massachusetts Health Care Trust Legislation

Revised and Filed on January 14, 2009.

WHAT THIS BILL DOES:

This legislation guarantees every Massachusetts resident first class health care coverage. It creates a single, publicly financed health plan (a “single payer”) providing comprehensive coverage for all, dramatically reducing health care costs and eliminating discriminatory access to care based on income, geography, race, ethnicity, age, gender, and other social identities.

WHY A SINGLE-PAYER LAW IS NEEDED:

No country or community in the world has been able to approach universal, quality health care coverage without a single-payer system. This is because having many private insurers is actually much more expensive, and creates more waste, than covering all residents under a single public system.  A single payer public program eliminates the profits, marketing costs, high executive salaries, and high overhead of the commercial insurance industry.  Furthermore private commercial insurance plans cost hospitals, health centers, and physicians billions of dollars to deal with dozens of insurers, each with a different system and each imposing different requirements on health care providers.

Having a single system that benefits all residents dramatically reduces discrimination and inequalities in access to quality care. Disparities in the health care system have actually been growing rather than diminishing in the United States. Depending on your age, ethnicity, gender, geographic location, sexual orientation, and many other factors, you will face different barriers to receiving the care you need. A system based on private insurance is designed to offer different levels of coverage and access to different groups of people - and insurance companies actually have an incentive to avoid social groups with statistically higher rates of health problems. So long as we have different tiers of coverage for different people, discrimination will plague our health care system.

Single-payer systems allow patients to choose from any doctor, hospital, or other provider; allow continuity of care; and promote preventive care. Almost all plans under private insurers in the United States today place severe limitations on where patients may receive care.  In addition, when residents change jobs or health care plans, they will often be forced to change provider as well - undermining “continuity of care,” which medical professionals consider crucial. Most importantly, single payer systems   will not have financial barriers such as co-pays or high deductibles that prevent people from getting needing preventive or acute medical care.  Residents will be encouraged to get early preventive care that promotes a healthy population and saves money in the long run.

HOW DOES THE HEALTH CARE TRUST RELATE TO THE RECENTLY ENACTED MASSACHUSETTS HEALTH CARE LAW?

The health reform law passed in Massachusetts in 2006 (known as “Chapter 58″) attempts to expand healthcare coverage to one group, the uninsured. The law, while not universal, will be impossible to maintain over time as health care costs continue to rise at unsustainable rates. Moreover, it does not address the broader health care crisis facing municipalities, businesses, and households, which is that the health care we do receive is often unaffordable, and health coverage is steadily eroding. Additionally, a majority of those affected by the Mass. Reform Law report that it has hurt, rather than helped them.

Similar bills in other states that have attempted to cover the uninsured with subsidies for low income people have had little success in shrinking the uninsured population because rising health care costs make this so expensive. Without the sort of cost controls that a single payer system brings it is impossible to slow the crisis of the uninsured, the underinsured, and the high cost to employers and residents breaking the bank to pay for quality insurance.

SUPPORT FOR THE BILL:

Massachusetts voters and economic studies have consistently supported a universal, single payer health care system.  A 1986 referendum directing the State Legislature to call on the US Congress to enact a national health care program was approved by more than 66% of the voters statewide.  Subsequent universal single payer referendums for the Commonwealth were approved in 1994, 1998, 1999, and 2000. In 2008, 10 districts voted by large margins (averaging 73%) to instruct their legislator to support single payer and oppose individual mandates.  Two professional studies commissioned by the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1998 and a third by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2000 have strongly recommended a single payer system like the Health Care Trust as the best option for Massachusetts health care reform.

Over one hundred organizations in the state have formally endorsed the Massachusetts Health Care Trust bill. These groups include ACORN, the American Medical Students Association, Cape Care, the Communication Workers of America, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, the Latin American Health Institute, the League of Women Voters, the Mass. Alliance of Portuguese Speakers, the Mass. Coalition for the Homeless, the Mass. Nurses Association, the Mass. Teachers Association, the National Association of Social Workers, Our Bodies Ourselves, the United Auto Workers, and UNITE-HERE New England.