As we learned today the biggest item slashed in Romney’s budget cuts are health care spending. Wouldn’t it be nice that instead of mere partisan political posturing and rhetoric, we could see evidence of some strong leadership to remedy the causes of obscene waste, profiteering, and dysfunction that largley define our current health care “system”?
Here in Mass. we’re spending WAY MORE than enough already, $62 Bil in 2006, to cover everyone with comprehensive insurance if we could muster the political will–public and politicians combined–to meaningfully address the many areas of wasteful bureaucracy and harmful profiteering that pervade the current system.
The front-line clinicians, people who are uninsured and suffering, and other ordinary folk from all walks of life across the Commonwealth launched the citizens health care amendment four years ago. We will not let it die.
It is our ethical duty to protect this largely volunteer-driven and citizen-led effort to establish a right to health care for all.
We are obliged to speak truth to power and to do everything in our power, little as it may feel at times, to protect the health care amendment and its hope of creating a right to health care for all. We are called by our commitment to each other as fellow human beings and as health care advocates to protect the amendment from falling prey to deceitful and disingenuous tactics that are being used as the behest of corporate power brokers in an attempt to kill it.
We are keeping our eye on the prize and our heart and soul in the struggle until we achieve health care for all. And we really need your help.
1. Of course not. The initiative process has been ignored on the questions of lowering the income tax rate and apparently gay marriage, with the support of many of the folks now backing the HCA (more on that below). If it’s good enough for those amendments, why would Health Care be any different?
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2. No. We don’t short-cut a process just because we likely know the outocme. Otherwise we could have cancelled most of the elections in this state in 2006. Things change. I’d also love to see support for the claim that 80% of the public supports this amendment when so few of them have ever heard of it.
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3. Of course. There’s little “identifable public opposition” because this amendment still seems like inside baseball, the nitty-gritty of lawmaking. Trust me, if/when this gets on the ballot, there will be plenty of opposition in evidence.
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I do have a question though — based on question 1, you seem upset that the Legislature is too willing to ignore the procedure for chaning the Constitition. Then on questions 2 & 3 you seem ready to violate that procedure yourself for convenience’s sake.
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One of the most striking aspects of what I’ve read on this site over the last few months is the sheer, cynical manipulation so many liberals advocate relative to the initiative process. If they do not favor an issue, they advocate thoroughly gutting the process, such as on lowering the income tax (ignoring the vote) or same-sex marriage (proceduring it out of existence). If the issue is a “good” one, then doing the same (on Clean Elections or health care) is horrible insidery politician stuff shame shame.
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I’d imagine the willingness of liberals to advocate violating the intiative process when convenient for them is a major reason politicans feel comfortable doing so for the same reasons — when it’s convenient for them. Some consistency would help change that.
Actually, by posing the 3 questions I was setting out to explore the range of various viewpoints I’ve learned of from reading and reflecting on the huge array of comments about the ConCon process issue on this site.
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I feel strongly that the process set forth by Article 48 must be repected and thus adhered to.
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I also continue to struggle with thinking through the process implications on the anti-marriage rights amendment and on the lives of the people who have spoken so passionately about that.
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Many voices have spoken with great sincerity and conviction. I simply am attempting to give their specifics and their differences an airing while continuing to clarify my own thinking. I must admit I’m also trying to get better at “discussing” this stuff succinctly; not a trait that comes naturally to me (as some may have already observed).
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Re the poll, see data links on campaign homepage section that appears 1/3 the way down. Text here for your ease:
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Poll Shows 4-1 Support for Amendment
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July 10, 2006 New polling data released today by the Campaign shows overwhelming public support for the Health Care Amendment.
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The new poll shows that by an almost 4-1 margin, 76.2%-20.2%, over three-quarters of Massachusetts residents favor a Health Care Amendment to the Massachusetts State Constitution. Click here to read the executive summary.
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The results of this poll present clear signs that Massachusetts adults continue to maintain their solid support for a state constitutional amendment mandating health insurance coverage and strongly favor placing that amendment on the ballot this November, according to the pollster, Gerry Chervinsky.
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The questions making up this proprietary poll were asked as part of The State House News Poll, a telephone poll conducted by KRC/Communications Research for The State House News Service from June 26-28, 2006, using standard random-digit-dialing techniques. The poll of 410 Massachusetts adults carries an overall margin of error of +/-4.7%.
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This poll confirms the findings of the recent Channel 7/Suffolk University poll showing overwhelming support for the Health Care Amendment.
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Lastly, a question for you: who do you have in mind when you say:
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” Trust me, if/when this gets on the ballot, there will be plenty of opposition in evidence.”
I appreciate the polling data. However, I think it would be a lot more powerful if the question included the projected cost of such an amendment. People are in favor of almost everything out there if asked in a poll…until they find out the price tag.
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As for opposition, I’ll be direct — it will be funded and developed by stakeholders in the health care status quo, much like opposition to Question 1 this week was funded by liquor stores. But like Q1, those arguments will reach different people for different reasons. To wit:
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Folks with less diserous experiences with stat health care (such as myself)
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That’s for starters. If we put forth a certain program, that will attract more criticism for not being enough/being too much.
to every state resident. What’s largely missing are publicly identified and enforced rules and standards for how health care dollars get spent. The citizens amendment campaign seeks to start this much needed public dialogue and the ensuing policy reforms.
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A number of independent economic analyses on Mass. health care spending have been conducted over the past decade. About 8 years ago, after the legislature repeatedly cried poor to fund such analyses, the Mass. Medical Society stepped up and paid for 2 different consulting groups (Lewin Group & Solutions for Progress) to look at state health spending and to construct a variety of models to achieve universal coverage. I can’t find exact links now but some of the reports, as well as others, can be found on the Boston University Health Access and Affordability Monitoring Project site
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Sound models were contructed to achieve universal coverage and demonstrated that it could be done, and in addition, actually SAVE the state money. This would require the entrenched sources of waste in health financing and delivery to be meaningfully addressed. Surprise surprise, there was not the political will to take on this task. Hundreds of thousands of people in hard-working families across the state continued to be uninsured, living sicker lives and dying prematurely. I took care of these patients for over 10 years as an inner city home care nurse with the Boston VNA.
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Then in 2000 after backroom deals were made effectively cutting the legs out from under the Universal Health Care ballot Question 5, the bone that was thrown to the activists was for the state to commission yet another study, this one done by LECG revealed that 39% of all health care dollars spsent in the state were being diverted away from actual healht care services. The legislature essentially did nothing with the findings after releasing the report on New Year’s Eve 2002. Very discouraging to say the least.
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In addition to full LECG Report see the “CC” Addendum for our group’s statement on the final report and the Universal Health Care Advisory Commiittee process that was intitiated but stopped far short of fulfilling its stated objectives.
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This brings us to the 2003 launch of the health care amendment inititative campaign.
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Most recently, additional Reports issued by researchers at Boston Univ. Health Reform Program and Affordability Monitoring Project and briefings to the legislature clearly demonstrate that the money’s in the system already. It’s really an embarassment of riches once one starts adding up the numbers. It is the political will–that must come from the public and from politicians who want to do the right thing–to fundamentally restructure the financing mechanisms and some of the other deeply flawed but fixable elements of the system.
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The below excerpted from the Boston Univ. Health Reform Program and Affordability Monitoring Project
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4. Roughly one-half of our health spending is wastedon unnecessary or incompetent clinical care, on administration, on excess prices, and on theft.
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The four types of waste are described in detail in the Health Reform Programs 9 February 2005 report on rising health costs. Some of this waste is irreducible, but most can be squeezed out and recycled to finance care for today’s uninsured people, improve quality, and hold down spending increases.
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The following table presents rough estimates of the current share of health spending absorbed by each type of health care waste, and the share that we suggest may constitute an irreducible minimum share of waste.
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In 2005, the one-half of Massachusetts health spending that is wasted equals just over $26 billion. If waste could be cut from 50 percent of health spending ($26 billion in 2005) to 20 percent of health spending ($10.5 billion in 2005), some $15.5 billion would be made available for better purposes in Massachusetts.
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That money could be used to finance care for people who are uninsured today, and to round out benefits for people who are under-insured. Sums left over could be used to address hunger, the environment, education, or other pressing needs. These steps would also help to improve health.
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sabutai, your points are valuable and much appreciated; this type of substantive dialogue is just what the amendment camapaign is intended to initiate on a statewide scale.
As another poster called you, I do NOT think you are just Collateral Damage.
If I had to vote on that as an Amendment tomorrow, I wouldn’t have a clue.
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On one side (AnnEm’s) are advocacy groups, polls, reasons why it’s a great idea and will save money, big eyed kids, kitties…the works.
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On the opposition side there is … nothing. No reasons, no explanations, a committee that has no public meetings. Nothing.
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Repeated correspondence to Senator Moore’s office via e-mail and snailmail has been a waste of postage. I’ve received no replies, and I’M IN SENATOR MOORE’S DISTRICT!
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Advocates deserve a vote, voters deserve both sides of what I suppose is a complicated argument. Somewhere, there’s a smoke-filled room surrounding the stalling of this Amendment.
I’m a longtime lurker here and felt compelled to post as a result of the spririted debate over SSM and the Health Care amendment. This thread poses a set of important questions about the initiative process, but tries to resolve them with arguments about the merits of the Health Care Amendment. I’d like to return to the process itself.
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First, it seems to me there is still a solution to the Jan. 2 problem: a majority vote to change the order of the agenda to take up the HCA as the first item on the list. With such a strong majority in favor of the amendment, I’m not sure why a parliamentary maneuver to change the agenda order wouldn’t work (but then I’m not an insider to this process, either).
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Second, despite the lawsuit filed by the HCA folks, I don’t see anything in Article 48 requiring the kind of “up or down” final vote the proponents want. Lots of bills and other actions get killed by lots of means-for better or worse, it’s a longstanding practice of legislatures everywhere.
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Third, I think separation of powers prohibits the courts (or the governor) from ordering the legislature to vote. Unless I’m missing something, this seems pretty basic to me.
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Finally, the initiative process is broken. While well-intentioned, it has two major faults. The 25% bar is too low. I’d be happier with 2/3, or perhaps even the federal filibuster standard of 40%. It should be difficult to amend the Constitution. The second fault, especially with such a low voting threshold, is that wealthy people and institutions can finance initiative drives. If I ran the world, I would prohibit all paid signature gatherers on all referenda. Since this is the voice of the voters we’re supposed to be respecting, I might even restrict petition gathering to registered voters. I don’t think this would harm amendments such as the HCA, or perhaps even the anti-SSM, but it would prevent a lot of the problems we’ve already seen.
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