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Date: 11/3/2021
WESTERN MASS. – On Oct. 25, Massachusetts lawmakers conducted a virtual legislative briefing for the Medicare for All bill, “An act Establishing a Medicare for All in Massachusetts.”
The event, which was conducted by state Reps. Lindsay Sabadosa and Denise Garlick, as well as state Sens. Jamie Eldridge and Adam Gomez, featured two speakers who shared stories about why the state’s current insurance-based system is failing people living in Massachusetts currently.
The bill, which was petitioned by the above legislators, seeks to establish a single payer healthcare financing system for all residents in Massachusetts to achieve and sustain universal equitable access, affordability, cost control and high-quality medical care. The goal of this bill to ensure that all residents have access to dental care, behavioral health, eyeglasses, hearing aids, home health care, nursing home care and other health needs. The bill also seeks to eliminate co-insurance, co-payments, deductibles and any other form of home sharing.
The first speaker was University of Massachusetts professor and nationally acclaimed economist Gerald Friedman, who spoke about his extensive report, “Funding Universal Healthcare in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” and how this new bill would replace “an inefficient, inequitable, and destructive health care finance system with a fair system that will promote economic efficiency and better health.”
“Healthcare access is a right, and it is a necessity,” said Gomez. “Your income level that we always speak on shouldn’t determine your coverage. “Everyone should have access to affordable healthcare.”
Friedman began the discussion by saying that the current healthcare system has been getting worse relative to where the state should be. According to the economist, the United States spends 50 percent more on healthcare than anyone else in the world, yet life expectancy in the U.S. is comparable to countries like Turkey and Chile, places that spend $7,000 less than us.
“We are eight years behind where we should be, given our spending,” said Friedman, adding that Massachusetts spends a little more on health insurance and has a higher life expectancy than other parts of the country. “We do a bit better in Massachusetts…but not so much better that you want to feel very proud.”
The graphics Friedman presented in front of legislatures illustrated how every other country within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has increased life expectancy while increasing their spending at a slower rate, compared to the United States. “We have higher mortality in this country in large part because of lack of access to healthcare,” said Friedman, adding that people visit their physicians four times in a year compared to an average of six times per year in other countries within the OECD. “You wash it out, the major thing is that we can’t afford to go to the doctor.”
Fifty percent of poor people in this country report that they cannot afford to go to the doctor, according to Friedman. Meanwhile, 27 percent of people who are considered “rich” could not afford to visit the doctor.
The reasons for these problems stem from a fragmented payment system where physicians must bill all these different insurance companies and the flawed marketplace. “We are all being exploited by a few providers who are producing something that we all need to live,” said Friedman, adding that doctors spending 30 percent of their working hours talking to insurance companies. “Private insurance cannot work.”
To fix these problems, Friedman spoke about savings and spending. He said simplifying the administration of the health insurance center would fall in the former, while spending some money on Medicaid prices and getting rid of fraud would fall in the latter. “We’re pretty close to universal health care in Massachusetts, but we’re not quite there,” said Friedman, who also noted the fact that Medicaid prices are too low in Massachusetts. “If we’re going to have a single system, well you have to pay Medicaid providers the same as you would everyone else, and that would be a good thing.”
According to Friedman, the new bill would primarily benefit the middle class in Massachusetts, where people will be saving much more money from not paying premiums or cost-sharing. The commonwealth altogether could save $800 million in a year with a single payer system.
Patty Healey, a nurse case manager and co-lead of Western Massachusetts Medicare for All, said that much of the prior legislation presented by the commonwealth to alleviate health insurance costs has not worked. “Seventy percent of physicians in Massachusetts believe that they are unable to navigate the health insurance companies,” said Healey. “Insurance-driven healthcare doesn’t address the things that we need in the state. The concentration of resources is different in the east and the west.”
Healy noted that she loves her job but hates dealing with the insurance companies on a regular basis. The plan was for case managers such as Healy to interface with insurance companies, but these managers were unable to prevent the insurance companies from causing worse outcomes, and patient advocacy has not worked for these reasons. Because of the lack of behavioral health beds that have been closed by large healthcare corporations, there are places like Cooley-Dickinson in Northampton that have children in a 12 by 12 room with a staff person up to seven days waiting for a bed.
“That’s a real violation of someone’s human rights,” said Healy. She also added that a single payer healthcare system would better assist with addiction patients, since beds for them have also been scarce recently. Healy noted that she sees three to four patients a day who deal with addiction on a weekly basis, and there are other staffing and financial problems patients face when they visit Healy, including loss of insurance. Some companies, like Blue Cross, only cover certain injuries and sicknesses too, causing a whole other headache in places like Cooley-Dickinson.
“Without authorization, a sick person may not get treatment,” said Healy. “Sometimes, they can’t get a CAT scan.”
A hearing involving this bill was conducted the day after the forum where people gave three hours’ worth of testimonies and anecdotes involving their hardships with the state’s current healthcare system. Many also testified to simply advocate for the present bill.
“The Medicare for All hearing was filled with compelling testimony about why our current health care system, despite insuring many, is still not ensuring that people can truly access affordable health care,” said Sabadosa, in a statement. “More importantly, though, the hearing really emphasized how we can pay for a single payer system that would change not how health care is provided by how we pay for it. Moving forward, the work involves developing a transition plan to determine how we move forward and building more grassroots support."
To learn more about this bill and the specifics surrounding it, people can visit https://malegislature.gov/Bills/192/S766.