If you go to a supermarket, farmer’s market or other public agora this weekend and next, you will likely see folks asking for signatures to put various acts on the ballot in November 2006. This is to introduce the Massachusetts Quality Affordable Health Care Act ballot initiative.
Why sign it? Here are the reasons, from MassACT, the coalition supporting the initiative:
The ballot language:
- Reduces premiums – ending the insurance surcharge now tacked onto premiums to pay for uninsured patients who get care in emergency rooms and other sites.
- Increases quality affordable coverage – providing sliding-scale assistance to moderate-income families struggling to afford health care costs.
- Helps small businesses provide coverage – expanding the Insurance Partnership program and establishing a reinsurance program to reduce premiums.
- Makes our health system fair – funding expanded coverage through an affordable assessment on firms that refuse to provide coverage to their workers.
- Covers our children and most vulnerable residents – expanding the affordable MassHealth program.
- Lowers health costs and improves health – increasing the cigarette tax by 60 cents to reduce smoking and to fund affordable coverage.
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So… I often hear from really really smart people whom I like and respect that they don’t really understand health policy, that they’re not really sure what’s a good idea, or that there might be this or that unintended consequence to an ambitious reform … I hear you. And I respect the integrity of saying "Gosh, I don’t know," when you really don’t know.
But what do we know? We know that our current system (or lack thereof, more properly) is a meat-grinder for the uninsured. We all have that feeling of "There but for the grace of God go I" when we hear these stories — many of us are on the edge ourselves. All of us are paying the enormous 10-12% year-over-year increases, which with the truly frightening power of compound interest comes out to doubling every six or seven years.
In other words, doing nothing bears an enormous cost. We just don’t have the luxury of waiting for the perfect health care system. To paraphrase Rick Pitino: "Single payer is not walking through that door." We don’t live in a perfect world, and in public policy sometimes we have to choose what problems we’re willing to live with, and which are beyond the pale.
This act will help real people, and it’s doable now, and it’s clear that the benefits, economic and humanitarian, far outstrip whatever costs. The law has been crafted by diligent, smart, decent, and eminently sane people.
It’s the status quo that’s unworkable — let’s try something else for a change.
And be careful! The gay marriage vote people are out with their petition, too, and you don’t want to turn up on knowthyneighbor!
The current system is untenable, and change is needed.A few weeks ago, I had a patient come in with a trauma. She claimed to be her sister because her sister has insurance. Luckily, there were no major differences in their histories, but real damage could have been done in a different situation. Imagine if she had a severe drug allergy, but her sister did not.The job is hard enough without this kind of nonsense.