Families are being devastated
More than 50,000 lost coverage when MassHealth Basic was eviscerated. Those most in need, and least able to pay for services, were quite viciously denied (in a fashion that, by this Democratic Party legislature, could only be described as morally depraved) eyeglasses, prosthetics, orthotics, dentures and chiropractic therapy. Many private employers are slashing health care coverage and gouging employees with health care costs. Aid for state rape crisis centers and sexual assault services is being wiped out. Medicaid will not allow for cleanings, bridge work, fillings or root canals - thereby virtually mandating- and making inevitable - tooth extraction for the people so covered. Public health agencies, meanwhile, are scheduled to be hamstrung by requirements for cost/ benefit analyses.Cutbacks in inpatient care for the Department of Mental Health leave some of our most vulnerable with no place to turn, inviting self-harm and suicide. Hospitals, nursing homes and health centers are going bankrupt. Over 640,000 people are without health insurance, despite our state having the highest health care spending in the nation. 40% of what we spend on health care gets spent on overhead rather than care. Hospitals and nursing homes have a staffing crisis facilitating increased risk of infection by C. difficile and MRSA, greater risk for falls, medication errors and increased instances of malnourishment. Loss of dignity from inability to pay for dentures has prompted many nursing home residents on MassHealth to willfully starve to death. For people insured, premiums are skyrocketing while coverage now has more holes than Swiss cheese. Medicare now provides so little coverage; we can honestly say the Great Society has died. Many people are now being forced to choose between medications, and their meals and homes. A caring Commonwealth simply cannot allow this sad and sorry state of affairs to continue.
I Support a Single-payer Plan
By making health insurance independent of employment, the state can lower health care costs (and lower the costs of doing business for most local enterprise) while providing for universal coverage. I support a Massachusetts Health Care Trust such as that which favorable passage of S. 755, reintroduced December 1, 2004, would provide. This bill would ensure that monies now wastefully spent on administrative costs such as paperwork, marketing and profits would be spent on providing care. Businesses and individuals need not exhaust so much on liability coverage duplicative of the coverage that many filing claims already have.
The single-payer plan benefits not only consumers, but also most employers. Manufacturers especially face a mighty competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace, as their health care costs are one third higher than those in the service sector. Proposals to mandate employee coverage from employers are both unrealistic and unsustainable. A single-payer plan would provide an economic plus for the Commonwealth, permitting employer capital investment, and permitting employees a healthier cash reserve. It would reign in costs for hospitals and nursing homes, and put an end to class-based disparities in wellness and health care.
I Support Higher Staffing Ratios
Throughout my nine years employed as a certified nursing assistant, I learned first hand the true costs of paltry staffing. I watched as infection control procedures were routinely violated in efforts to preserve an appearance of efficiency. Staffing constraints often compelled observance of a mere thirty minute window for the feeding of people with profound disabilities. Nursing home residents reported out for hospitalization more often than not returned with anti-biotic resistant infections. Serious injuries to staff could easily be predicted on days when the few co-workers staffed were compelled to call in sick on days scheduled. Resident falls would rise.
Staffing ratios for nurses, orderlies and nursing assistants are not now nearly high enough for staff and patients both to have even a snowball's chance in Hades of avoiding sickness and injury. For this reason, I support the passage of H. 2663, backed also by the Massachusetts Nurses Association - but also note that this bill is not nearly good enough but quite inadequate to the needs of both patients and other staff. I would work hard for the passage of not only this bill, but also companion legislation mandating higher CNA to patient ratios in nursing homes along a similar basis to that which would be mandated by the passage of H. 2663.
I Won't Hamstring Public Health Agencies
Too many Democratic Party state legislators enjoy pretending that hampering health regulators somehow provides "economic stimulus". In fact, it helps pave the way for continued and far more terrible economic consequences to come. Members of the state House of Representatives have made a habit out of attempting to mandate ever more cost/ benefit analyses of public health agencies that would advance new rules and/ or regulations. This would effectively divert their dwindling resources from actual public health protection into more red tape and paperwork. I would oppose impact study requirements for such agencies.
I Support an Affordable Health Care Constitutional Amendment
Quality health care for all is an inalienable human right, and it is high time it became a Constitutional right in the Commonwealth. The newly proposed Health Care Constitutional Amendment would enshrine these rights into law - permitting every Massachusetts resident comprehensive, affordable and equitably financed quality health care.
More Information Available
The Health Care Constitutional Amendment
Massachusetts Nursing Association Safe Care Campaign
The Single Payer Health Plan
Jill Stein, Nat Fortune, Owen Broadhurst Op/Ed on Health Care
Green-Rainbow Party Comment on Healthcare
Owen R. Broadhurst on Google
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