Those familiar with W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s finest collaborative work, The Mikado, will recognize the title of this post. A few minutes into Act II, some of the main characters find themselves in a most unfortunate situation. Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, is the guardian of the beautiful Yum-Yum, and has resolved to marry her. She, however, is in love with Nanki-Poo, and he with her. Nanki-Poo, unable to bear watching his beloved marry Ko-Ko against her will, resolves to commit suicide. When Ko-Ko learns of this, however, he makes a deal with Nanki-Poo, since Ko-Ko is also in a sticky situation, having been ordered by the Mikado to execute someone soon or himself face execution. So Ko-Ko agrees to let Nanki-Poo marry Yum-Yum, as long as 30 days hence Nanki-Poo agrees to be beheaded. Yum-Yum, informed of the arrangement, happily agrees.
But then it turns out that, under the Mikado’s law, when a married man is executed his wife must be buried alive. This, not surprisingly, gives Yum-Yum second thoughts about the wisdom of marrying Nanki-Poo — “it’s such a stuffy death,” she says of being buried alive. Nanki-Poo describes his very difficult situation thus: “If I insist on your carrying out your promise [to marry me], I doom you to a hideous death. If I release you, you marry Ko-Ko at once.” And then begins the famous trio, “Here’s a how-de-do!”
We have a bit of a how-de-do going on in Massachusetts rights now, particularly among the “progressive” community, and it has manifested itself right here on BMG. The difficulty is this. Health care advocates have spent a great deal of time and energy trying to write a guarantee of universal affordable health insurance into the state Constitution. They gathered their signatures; they easily got the votes they needed in the last legislative session; and they need only 50 votes in this session to advance the measure to the ballot.
Unfortunately, the health care amendment had the extremely bad fortune to appear on the calendar of the joint session after the proposed anti-marriage amendment. The joint session took final action on all of the agenda items before the anti-marriage amendment, but they of course recessed until January 2, 2007, before acting on the anti-marriage amendment, and at this point no one expects them to do anything other than delay and then adjourn when it’s too late to take action on anything. Likely result: the anti-marriage amendment dies through inaction — as does the health care amendment, as do several other proposals worthy of serious consideration. Further complicating the situation is that, as I understand the rules, altering the order of the calendar requires unanimous consent, which will not be achievable, so moving the health care amendment ahead of the anti-marriage amendment is probably not an option.
So here, indeed, is a pretty how-de-do. Let us assume for the moment that killing the anti-marriage amendment without a vote is a good and desirable outcome (I am not of that view, but this is a thought experiment, and in any event it looks like that’s what’s going to happen). Let us further assume that getting a vote on the health care amendment is also a good thing. Is there any way to make both sides happy?
What I’m looking for in this thread is suggestions for action. Talk to your legislators and get their views. If you are a legislator, or work for one, or know a lot about legislative rules, what are our options? Are there any extra-legislative options available? The health care advocates (including our own AnnEM) have filed suit to force the amendment onto the ballot, though I doubt that’ll work (and, I imagine, so do they) — are there other avenues?
What I am not looking for — and what I will delete without notice — is calls for one side or the other to get over it, or to suck it up, or to recognize that the other guys’ agenda is obviously more important and should be given precedence. There’s been plenty of that going on in other BMG threads discussing the ConCon, and we don’t need more of it here.
I’d suggest working on the governor-elect. We know he wants to fix health care, and much of the legislature does too and would love to finally have some leadership from the corner office on this. We should not need an amendment to achieve health care reforms.
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Can you table an amendment and move on to the consideration of the next amendment? (I’m thinking probably not since it wasn’t done…)
MUST items retain their original number and ranking? My recollection is that #10 was taken up before #2, for example (I remember a comment about somebody being thrown by the out-of-order numbers).
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Since health care is in its SECOND Session – why wouldn’t it logically be taken up first?
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Your remedy may lay with the Senate Clerk.
What are the leadership’s objections to this amendment? Is it known to be the case that they are simply taking instruction from, say, the insurance industry? The answer may be obvious, and I’m sorry if it was given in another thread and I missed it, but I personally don’t know it.
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(David, sorry if this violates the thought-experiment premise of the thread. My point may not be relevant in the short term re: this concon. But then again, depending on what the answer is, it may.)
“Howdy Do”. Anyway, that’s how I thought is was spelled.
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Maybe I’m tinfoil hat thinking, but there’s more to simple ordering of amendments here than meets the eye. Even if the
dancing weaselsaugust legislators met and voted on the gay marriage thing, I’ll wager that there would be (will be) some obstacle put in the way of the Healthcare Amendment.<
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But why? Advocates claim there is broad support according to polls. Certainly there’s some rabid advocacy groups and claims of cheaper, better, faster …
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But as far as public opposition to the Amendment, all’s quite.
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There must be reasoned opposition, else the Amendment would have passed by now.
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To paraphrase a learned scientist: It is highly improbable, in a statistical sense, that new information added to any existing forecast is almost always pro Universal Healthcare or anti Universal Healthcare. Rather, with regards to an uncertain law in a society of various and varying opinions, each new finding or opinion has an equal probability of supporting or opposing the Amendment.
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Consequently, the preponderance of information supporting the Amendment almost certainly means that something is missing. It’s probably in the reporting of the opposing view.
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So I reckon, procedurally, I have no specific suggestion how to more the Amendment up for consideration, but I cynically believe that even if it is moved up, it’d be voted down, or ignored, or recessed for dinner, or….
The only public opposition to the Health Care Amendment comes from the business community which is afraid that they would end up paying the bill.
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Given this year’s reforms they have good reason. We have a “shared responsibility” system in which the only responsible parties are individuals and employers. And, let’s be honest, when the cost shifting’s over that means you and me – through higher premiums, lower paychecks and budget shifts to health care and away from other priorities.
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The other big stakeholders, big hospitals and insurers, are pretty happy with the status quo. Sitting on billions in surplus, the new reforms have handed them hundreds of new paying patients/clients and higher reimbursements. Why rock the boat with an Amendment that clearly says the job isn’t finished yet.
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The legislative leadership may just be scared of taking the insurers and hospitals on to cut/contain costs and get a fair share back to the folks paying the bills – us.
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The Campaign put a plan on the table that included four proven savings strategies that could have cut the bill for state run programs by $2.2 billion last year alone. They created a bunch of committees and commissions instead. That’s taxpayer money wasted at the expense of the health and wellbeing of the folks in MassHealth and other state funded programs. Its more than enough to pay for universal coverage with money left over to attack other funding priorities – education, local aid, property tax relief, etc. It gives you some idea how unappealing taking on the big stakeholders must be. Imagine giving up $2.2 billion in new revenues without raising taxes?
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Many legislators know full well that this year’s reforms aren’t enough. And they took courageous votes last July to bring the Amendment to the floor for an up or down vote. Many more would have voted for the Amendment if they had had the chance.
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Ironically, if the vote had been taken then, there would be no “how de do” today.
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The Amendment is one of the tools the people could have to demand that the Legislature take a leadership role in replacing double digit premium hikes for shrinking benefits with comprehensive coverage paid for with money wasted every day by our health care system. It would be good for the health and financial security of every Massachusetts resident and for every business in the state as well. But it requires changing the status quo.
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Barbara Waters Roop, PhD, JD
Health Care Amendment Campaign
Does ‘healthcare for all’ support the Amendment?
must be the version set in the old west! 😉 The original is “how-de-do.”
They could simply vote on them both. Then, next year, they can do whatever they want to do to kill the marriage mamendment. They might even have 75% of the vote next year, so they won’t even need to go sub-constitutional to kill it.
“…they easily got the votes they needed in the last legislative session; and they need only 50 votes in this session to advance the measure to the ballot.”
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If I recall correctly (IIRC), they would have to start all over again with a petition drive if it doesn’t get voted on. I could be wrong, though…
So they can vote however they feel about it with no fear that it will then go before the people, since they can kill it next year. They should all vote Yes to put if off till next year, even if they are against it, so that they can get to the HealthCare issue. They should just tell everyone that’s what they are doing, so that none of their votes would be construed as being anti-gay marriage. Next year they might even have enough votes to get 75% and won’t need any procedural shananegans.
David, you are thinking of the Travaglini-Lees Amendment, which was approved two years ago but voted down last year. (Even that was the second one, the first one was scuttled by Birmingham and Lees and then not called back into session by Swift.)
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From VoteOnMarriage’s website: “Unlike the Travaglini-Lees Amendment approved two year’s ago, but defeated at a Constitutional Convention last year, this amendment does not create same-sex Civil Unions. The Protection of Marriage Amendment also does not ban Civil Unions, instead allowing the debate over Civil Unions to take place in the Legislature.”
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The VoteOnMarriage amendment is the fourth try, this one by Mass Family Institute people (the first one was by the MassNews people), and it is in it’s first year. (The third try was written by the Article 8 people, and was introduced as a legislative bill by Emil Goegan last year, but then turned into an amendment by Barrios and was #19 this year. That was also in its first year.)
It’s the second year for the health care amendment, so it only needs one more vote to get to the ballot. It’s the first year for the anti-marriage initiative.
There have been so many same sex marriage amendments that it gets more than a little confusing but…
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Barbara Roop
Health Care Amendment Campaign
But Jill cut and pasted the wrong snippet.
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So, David, seeing that it is only the first year, how about that strategy?
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They all vote 196-0 to move marriage on to next year, so none of them could be construed to be supporting it, in order to move on to health care?
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Trouble is, I don’t think they want to have that go to the people, and they don’t want to vote against it either. So hiding it behind marriage and saying they couldn’t vote on it is the easiest thing. The Globe doesn’t mind because they probably have a great health care deal with someone. They probably get free gym membership, therapy, the pill, everything. Now that I think of it, I’d say the health care bill is what killed this marriage amendment more than any other factor.
David, by focusing on the legislative outcomes–marriage rights protected but healthcare stopped, what do we do–you are really missing the more substantive and troubling questions that have roiled BMG.
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Does anyone seriously doubt that this power of the legislature to flout the Constitution and kill initiative amendments won’t be used against progressive reforms in the future? Indeed it already has!
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More seriously: doesn’t this behavior go directly to the trust issue that the Republicans have used so effectively to limit the power of government to do good things? Note to my fellow Deval Patrick supporters: the campaign was about restoring that.
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At the heart of the onion, at least for me, is the enormity of brushing away the Constitution, which almost rivals that of putting other people’s rights on the ballot.
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To protect equal rights, the legislature just engaged in what you could charitably call a kind of civil disobedience, or brutally call a state coup. Some of us are not exactly comfortable with that.
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Right now, at BMG, you have many otherwise thoughtful people arguing that, because the outcome was good, the means are also good. This is short-sighted at best.
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Maybe the means were justified. But good? Please.
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Spare me the nonsense about how since there is no enforcement mechanism in the Constitution it is “really” okay. I’ll bet that’s not the same view most of us have about Bush v. Gore.
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And, that’s not the view of the same Supreme Judicial Court that gave us Gooodrich. The Court, by not exceeding its powers and decreeing an outcome, is scrupulously observing the terms of Article XXX of the first part of the Constitution:
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That is part of our bill of rights. There is real merit in the principle that no group’s rights should be put on the ballot. However, legislators who based their vote to adjourn on that argument have come perilously close to violating Article XXX themselves, by making themselves the SJC in this case.
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A broken constitution is not cause to celebrate even if, for once, it broke our way.
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Sorry if this is not quite the disucussion you wanted to have, David. But I really don’t think everything would be all right even if somehow (and it won’t happen) the healthcare amendment could magically be brought up for a vote.
Trickle up-
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Thank you for saying it so eloquently. That’s why the Health Care Campaign is suing.
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Our Constitution provides the rules of the road for our democracy and we can’t just run folks off the road because we don’t agree with them. If we do we’re asking to be run off ourselves.
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We’re asking the SJC, the constitutional traffic cop, to get everyone back in line – legislators and advocates alike. The suit may eventually include a very unusual case of characters – rarely seen together on any issue. But we’ll all be there because we share a belief in the basic princple that the Constitution applies to us all, all the time.
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Barbara Waters Roop, PhD, JD, Co-Chair
Health Care Amendment Campaign
Does “Healtcare for All” support the Amendment? If so, they’re sure quite. If not, why not?
could it be that mr. john mcdonough has an little agreement with the leadership to “back off”?
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hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm
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does this seem somewhat reminiscent of HCFA slipping out right before the vote on 58, and quietly recommending to the members of GBIO who had worked so tirelessly for real reform, that they too should pack it up and go home?
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hhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Could you kindly clarify for those of us not up on the lingo?
about Health Care For All MA (HCFA);
Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO);
and the new MA health reform law (Chapter 58).
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Here goes and I hope it makes things clearer for you. although beware, it might also begin to reveal just how muddy the waters are that we are treading in.
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In addition to the info in the link above, I’ll add for clarification this add’l background: HCFA DID endorse the hc amendment, after all the signatures were collected, as i recall their timing. then 3 days before the May 11, 2006 ConCon (which was a few weeks after HCFA got much of what they had wanted in incremental reforms included in the Chapter 58 law) HCFA submitted a letter UNENDORSING the hc amendment, stating “unreconcilable differences” or something to that vague effect.
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It’s extremely difficult to discuss these things, as they do cause a simultaneous very heavy heart along with a rapid sharp increase in blood pressure…
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as goes for most others here, i value first and foremost focusing on constructive actions. i respect and value everyone’s questions and do feel obliged to respond honestly and thoroughly to sincere inquiries.
that people’s civil rights shouldn’t be voted on by the people?
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There is a strong case that access to healthcare is a right already. Indeed, I’d say it should be free for everyone, no one should ever have to pay to get healthcare, and putting this much into the constitution might diminish my claim to free healthcare as a basic human right.
Health Care for All supported the Health Care Amendment in 2004. John McDonough gave eloquent testimony in favor of it at its hearing in April 2004.
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After the Legislature amended the original langauge to require voter approval of laws enacted to ensure access to comprehensive, affordable and equitably financed health insurance they withdrew their support. Their argument was that this could apply to any health care law from a vaccination program for Pittsfield to the mega-deluxe reform.
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We have prepared a legal memo and a summary of why we believe the voter approval requirement would only apply to comprehensive reforms not incremental ones. It is an opinion shared by the amendment’s sponsor, Senator Moore, who as Chairman of the Health Financing Committee has no interest submitting every bill the committee approves to the people.
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We certainly agree with HCFA that the language was not meant as a friendly amendment. The business interests that sponsored it oppose the Amendment. And the Legislature was looking for political cover in case they needed to raise taxes down the road. But we believe that it really wasn’t much of a concession. It reflected political reality. If any major stakeholder from taxpayers and employers to hospitals and insurers thinks they got the short end of the stick they’ll take any reform to the ballot for repeal. It happened in California just weeks before the July 2004 ConCon when their recently enacted employer mandate was repealed after a tough campaign.
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We’ve concluded, however, that this language actually has a major plus side. It sets a great big seat at the negotiation table for the people. Major reforms can’t just be negotiated in the back rooms among a few of the big stakeholders leaving the voters to pick up the tab.
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What the voters think – the people who use our health care system and who pay the bills – really makes a difference.
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Barbara Roop
Health Care Amendment Campaign
So what is the history of the Healthcare Amendment? Why wouldn’t the legislature initiate the amendment? Couldn’t it get sponsors?
To be honest, we never tried to go the legislative amendment route. We didn’t think the votes were there to get it approved even once. I have no doubt that we could have found quite a few sponsors but I’m also quite sure it would never have received its first approval.
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When we started the initiative amendent campaign in 2003, the Legislature had refused to even seriously discuss universal coverage since 1988 when the Dukakis employer mandate blew up before it ever went into effect. And there was little prospect of immediate change. But there was a growing sense that the time was ripe to build momentum for reform and we became one of the momentum builders.
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Many of the folks who started the campaign were involved in the Dukakis universal health care bill. I drafted parts of the employer mandate which was repealed before it was ever implemented. Others are fontline caregivers and long-time reform activists. We’ve all seen reforms come and go, pieces repealed, funding cut, enrollment capped, etc.
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We don’t all agree about what the best solution for getting to universal coverage is. But we do agree that if we want bullet proof reforms we need a constitutional anchor.
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The first Constitutional Convention convened and recessed fourteen times before we got our up or down vote. Supporters called their legislators and eventually 53 legislators – more than the number of votes required for approval – signed a letter asking the Senate President to bring it to a vote. The original anti-gay marriage amendment had already received its vote. It was clear we had the needed votes. So it was harder, although clearly not impossible, to prevent a vote on health care.
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In July 2004, with no reform legislation in sight and the cost of health care the #1 worry of Massachusetts voters, members wanted something concrete they could bring back to the district to make promises of reform meaningful. The members demanded a vote and with the “voter approval” language added, the Amendment got its first approval, 153 to 41.
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We’ve been working ever since to expand the coalition of Amendment supporters and get our second vote.
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This round we started as #1 on the ConCon Calendar. The Same Sex Marriage amendment that had been approved in the prior session was taken out of order and voted down. After four of more recesses the ConCon sent the Health Care Amendment to a “special study” using Rule F (and I’ll leave it up to you to decide what F stands for)under the “special” ConCon rules. Look at the bottom of the web page.
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The “special study” committee never convened. There has been no report and we are told not to expect one.
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So the Amendment sits at the end of the Calendar with advocates seeking to get it out of committee and to the floor for the up or down vote mandated by Article 48.
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And that’s where we are today.
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Barbara Waters Roop, PhD, JD
Health Care Amendment Campaign
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If the amendment doesn’t get a vote on January 2nd, do you need to start over again?
If we don’t get a vote on January 2nd, the work of hundreds of volunteers and organizations who have mobilized tens of thousands of people to call their legislators and send postcards and letters will be flushed.
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We could, of course, start again. But it takes something really special to start a process that requires three years of volunteer time from people who all have more than full time jobs already knowing from bitter experience that even when you do everything the constitution requires of you the Legislature doesn’t feel any need to do its constitutional duty.
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We’ve done our job. We’re asking them to do theirs.
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Barbara Roop
It seems that the lege intended the voter approval language as a cya clause, so that if there was dismay over whatever health care plan they came up with voters could take out their anger on the plan directly rather than on them. Or is there some alternative explanation?
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Now that the language is in there, wouldn’t the passage of this amendment make it more difficult (procedurally, at least) than it currently is to pass reforms? It appears that any legislation touching on health care–into the foreseeable future–would have to go through the extra step of a popular referendum. (Or is the language just intended to generically remind us that the normal electoral and initiative processes are there and available for registering dis/approval?)
Please check our our website for a summary and legal memo on this issue. Let me know what your think.
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If it did apply to every little reform we wouldn’t have agreed to it. We’re confident it doesn’t and even more confident that if it went to court the SJC would agree.
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Barbara Roop, PhD, JD
Health Care Amendment Campaign
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PS – Do you think the Legislature would want it to apply to every little reform? Makes it awfully hard to take credit for anything.
Thanks for the links and also for the info on voter approval provided in your comment above. It’s really such a shame that we’re only having this discussion now in the context of a mini sh*tstorm. It’s my fault, entirely, for not being more informed earlier, but that’s the way it goes–for most people, I think. (And it’s why I’m rather skittish about referenda, in general. We can all pretty easily make general value judgments about priorities without a lot of technical information at hand, but actually saying yea or nay to specific legislation… yikes.)
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As far as the language of this amendment, the fact that another advocacy group dropped support because of the same thing that immediately leapt out at me, makes me very inclined not to support the proposal.
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I understand that that doesn’t even seem relevant to people who are concerned primarily about the integrity of the process, but I’ve already said elsewhere that I’m just not (given the circumstances) one of those people.
It’s a shame that the legislative initiative option wasn’t considered.
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It’s clear that the organization felt it could get 25% support but couldn’t count on majority support in the legislature. The decision seems to have been made to go for the signatures to lower the bar — to avoid compromise entirely for a ‘bullet proof’ solution.
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I don’t think it speaks well for the merits of this proposed amendment.
It was an extremely thoughtful deliberative decision to choose the citizen initiative approach for this campaign that grew out of years and years and years of many people working hard on needed health reforms, to reach compromise but stay on track toward the goals, and time and time again seeing good efforts and ideas repeatedly stymied. Much as the gay rights movement and successes have come from years of struggle and work.
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A gay rights activist friend today pointed out that one HUGE difference between the struggle to achieve these 2 fundamental rights–marriage and health care–is that the health care reforms we need and deserve (universal affordable coverage) challenge the power and control of wildly powerful and heavily financed stakeholders who, unfortunately, have a vested in interest in maintaining much of the status quo in our obscenely expensive and wasteful system.
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I thought this thread was about constructive suggestions, raweel. what is yours?
Because I now believe the legislature did the right thing, I can’t really suggest strategy to force legislative action.
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I instead would ask supporters of the HCA to answer the question of why health care should be a enshrined as a new constitutional right. “Because we couldn’t otherwise circumvent powerful insurance companies” isn’t a principled answer.
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Thank you for your patience AnnEm, I know you are upset having put so much on the line to see things happen this way. Though I would currently vote against this amendment if it made it to ballot, I will do my best to maintain an open mind and would reconsider before doing so.
The initiative process itself is not an absolute good. 26 states have no initiative process at all, though whether they are better or worse off for it is a topic for another time. Other states have a direct initiative process where an amendment with enough signatures cannot be stopped from appearing on a ballot — these states can become ungovernable. Massachusetts has an indirect initiative process that opens up amendments to legislative approval.
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Article 48 is broken only in the sense that a bare majority of legislators can kill potential constitutional amendments (where the majority is greater than 50%, but less than 75% as explicitly required for citizen initiatives).
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The legislature’s inaction has unpleasant political overtones, but I do not believe it to be the case that a minority of legislators have hijacked the process. They’ve wrongly evened the field, but constitutional amendments (of the legislatively-initiated sort) would also require a 50% vote to proceed, not 25%. I think that we are better off for it.
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If you believe that there should be an unimpinged right for amendments to make it to the ballot, you should be in favor of replacing Article 48 with a a process like California’s. I on the other hand would be in favor of the initiative process entirely, as a well-intentioned reform that creates as many problems as it solves.
did not exceed its powers. While I have no problem with the outcome in Goodrich, it stretched the envelope considerably on the “rational basis” standard and way overstepped its role by dictating that the legislature could not guarantee gay couples with all the rights inherent in marriage by providing for marriage-equivalent civil unions, as in Vermont and now New Jersey (and, I believe, through legislation without a Court ruling in Connecticut). The legislative cuteness in avoiding a vote on the ballot initiative is likewise overstepping, but I don’t see it being any worse than the SJC’s overstepping.
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As for the health care amendment, in my opinion a Constitutional Amendment is an inappropriate means for providing health insurance coverage…that guarantee is meaningless without a complete structure providing for eligibility, funding sources, the whole nine yards. A guarantee in the Constitution is a symbolic gesture, what you need is a real health care system. Putting it in the Constitution isn’t going to make the funding magically appear.
Many states have Constitutions guaranteeing equal access to education and we all know how well that works.
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I also find it hard to believe that we will be able to truly fix health care without involvement of the Federal government.
Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.
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And there is this:
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– and all religious sects and denominations, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good citizens of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.”
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Since the arguments against marriage equality were all religious, this concept comes into play.
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But I’m getting off topic, so I’ll stop.
it should have. Clearly, in your view, it could and should have.
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But from where I sit it is the decisions in Vermont and New Jersey (and please do not get me started on New York and California) that are defective and inapropriately mediated by politics, since there is patently no equivalence between marriage and civil unions.
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In any case, if the Court has overstepped its bounds, the Legislature at least has the option of changing those bounds by proposing an amendment to the Constitution. No similar remedy is available to the Court when the Legislature overreaches in this case.
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if the GC tries to go beyond their Constitutional limits. Each branch has a check on the others, in hopes of keeping balance between the three.
to the instant case, in which the Joint Session is apparently supressing the initiative amendments without a final vote.
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The SJC has ruled this unconstitutional, but also finds there is no constitutional remedy that it can order in this case.
Then they cannot unilaterally change the Court’s decision. As to your statement that there is “patently no equivalence” between marriage and civil unions, what is that supposed to mean? There is no equivalence between gay marriage and heterosexual marriage, either, so long as federal law bars equal treatment of homosexual marriage or marriage-equivalents. In other states, same sex couples are granted the same rights as married couples–if the federal law was changed, then domestic partnerships (as well as homosexual marriages) could in fact be equal.
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Frankly, I wish we could just provide “domestic partnerships” for everyone, whether hetero- or homosexual. That way it would be clear to everyone the difference between the legal relationship granted by government and the one created by religion. Everyone could find a church/temple/mosque/whatever to get “married” in if they so chose.
In Massachusetts, they are called marriages.
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The idea of marriage as a civil contract, not a sacrament, dates back to the Puritains.
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A practice that also was an early example of the separation of church and state, and that set the precedent allowing women to enter into contracts and own property. Not bad for one little Puritain conceit!
by a member of the clergy? I frankly find that part a bit confusing. I guess if you don’t have a church wedding you get a certificate signed by a … city clerk? Justice of the Peace? I still say domestic partnership is a more appropriate term. Back when it was called marriage it was generally considered to be a permanent arragement, which is clearly no longer the case for most people (incidentally, including Goodrich).
My wedding certificate was not signed by a member of the clergy. Indeed, as I recall, the space was for the “Officiant”. In our case, my wife’s uncle — who is not a city clerk or JP or anything remotely similar.
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As for “Back when it was called marriage it was generally considered to be a permanent arragement”, I’d just say that times and terms change. Back in the day, “awful” and “awesome” were synonyms, in the sense of “inspiring awe”. Both of those words have changed, and so perhaps has the word “marriage”.
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Though I’d also point out that more marriages than not, in fact, do not end in divorce. The divorce rate has never been 50%, and I challenge you to show that “most” people do not consider marriage to be a permanent arrangement.
Working together, instead of tearing each other apart. I don’t like to have to tear others down, but it is going to understandably happen when they’re attacking every right I’ve gained in the past few years.
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If we work together, there are a lot of us. There are hundreds of gay activists who would support this bill who have been at every ConCon for the past few years. They’re probably there in the highest numbers out of anyone.
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However, I highly doubt many of them are talking to their congresspersons over the health care amendment. When I first called in the summer, the first thing I talked to both my senator and congressman was over the health care amendment. My Senator’s position was unclear and ambiguous – I told him that it was the most important issue facing Massachusetts today and that the new bill alone was not enough. It should be a right, and rights should be enshrined in our Constitution.
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I can’t say that it was my phone call alone that made the difference. There were probably many made that day. However, my Senator ended up doing what was right when the votes were all counted – and good on him for doing it.
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Imagine what would happen if both of our groups were doing this? We already must have a lot of people from the healthcare camps calling and making visits. If we work together and ad hundreds to that list, we WILL convince likely dozens of Congresspeople to do the right thing. If suddenly they want the vote, it will be much harder for Travaligni and DiMasi to go against the wills of their bodies and block it.
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We can also make calls to people like Deval Patrick and others, who can at least do their part behind the scenes.
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The answer is not to tear each other down, it’s to work together and build a greater progressive movement. Interest groups cannot just be interested in themselves at the expense of others. What’s happened has happened and there’s little any of us can do about it IF we use the tactics we’ve been using during the past few days – tearing each other down instead of those who are in opposition to our views. Let’s focus on the real targets and just maybe we’ll succeed on BOTH fronts.
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PS: There could be some parliamentary procudures we could employ that we don’t know about. There could be something, especially if we convince more reps and senators to make the right vote on the healthcare bill.
on the strategy to work together across issues to build pressure on individual leges from constituents AND to explore more “insider” strategy and actions such as moving the hc amendment up on the agenda so it will be taken up BEFORE the marriage amendment at the Jan 2 ConCon.
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the hc campaign has an online mechanism to send a postcard to your Rep and Sen asking him/her to push for a vote on Jan 2 and to VOTE YES on the hc amendment.
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Also online are the endorsement forms to sign on as an individual or organizational endorser These can be used to sway both individual leges AND leadership.
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This campaign grew out of years and years and years of many people working hard on needed health reforms, and time and time again seeing good efforts and ideas repeatedly stymied. Much as the gay rights movement and successes have come from years of struggle and work.
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A gay rights activist friend today pointed out that one HUGE difference between the struggle to achieve these 2 fundamental rights–marriage and health care–is that the health care reforms we need and deserve (universal affordable coverage) challenge the power and control of wildly powerful and heavily financed stakeholders who, unfortunately, have a vested in interest in maintaining much of the status quo in our obscenely expensive and wasteful system.
it says it printed out a postcard telling my legislator to vote for the amendment on May 10, 2006. That’s not going to impress her very much; she’ll wonder why I would send such a thing.
The website apparently needs updating but the actual postcards are always seen before being delivered and always have the current/ upcoming ConCon date on them. (remember, the legislature has strung us along for a total of 20 ConCons now, going back to our first vote in the 2003-04 session). Thakns for the heads up. we’ll fix the website pronto.
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anyone who want to help with the website, or any other part of the campaign, we really need your help. the office for the campaign is very conveniently located about 3 steps from the Central Square red line T stop (upstairs from Starbucks).
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call michael carr the campaign manager at 617-868-1280 if you want to help. and muchas gracias!
if everyone can call their representative and senator and ask some variant on these questions and get their “quotes”, we could then post them here and try to assemble a roll call of the truth;
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– do you support/oppose placing the heathcare amendment on the ballot?
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– why/why not?
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– has the leadership attempted to influence your support/opposition in any way?
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– can you explain their argument?
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– what do you plan to do to advance/kill the amendment?
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(any others? without bombarding them with a thousand interrogations?)
and remember; being respectful, direct, and no-nonsense is always a good approach!
the campaign could post the questionairre on the website for voters to complete with their leges. folks could print it out and jot down answers or just have it on the screen to use as a guide when calling. State House switchboard # 617-722-2000 should go on the form.
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i wonder how many leges would even call back their constituent much less answer all the questions, truthfully. that concern doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing, if after thinking it thru it seems of enough value for the effort. i always try to remember that getting folks to actually take action on something is harder than it might seem so asking them to do the most doable/effective thing is always the goal.
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Roll Call of the Truth. GREAT IDEA.
Why not amend Article 48 so that initiatives without “final action” (read: an up or down vote on the merits) proceed to the ballot?
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Of course, the legislature could avoid taking a vote on that. But, doing so would highlight that they care more about their power than our consitution.
Yeah, that would seem to be the intent of article 48, that unless 75% of the legislature thinks it’s a bad idea, it should get on the ballot. But why couldnt the framers have forseen this, and done it that way from the start? I suppose the framers could not have imagined that the legislature would just ignore their requirement to vote. Or perhaps they wanted to ensure that each members vote was recorded, rather than allowing amendments through without going on record. Or perhaps the only way to prove that members had an opportunity to vote it down is to vote on it.
The framers of the MA constitution knew all about procedural maneuvers as a legislative tactic. These maneuvers had an illustrious history in English Common law, which still has effect to a small degree in terms of precedent on our legal system and at the time of the framing was a significant source of legal precedent. I have no doubt that they could have easily foreseen this sort of an impasse.
A bill not signed by the Gov. becomes law after 10 days, unlike the Federal pocket veto.
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Of course, it’s lovely to discuss ‘Scrap/Amend Article 48’ – except – WE HAVE TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION TO DO IT.
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So back to reality based – WHO controls the order on the calendar?
So, say a bill is passed by by two sessions and is supposed to make it to the ballot, what happens if the Secretary of State doesn’t put it on the ballot? Or, what happens if the printer doesn’t print it? At what point do the police show up and start arresting people?
The Health Care Bill which passed this year impact this amendment. Didn’t the Bill in effect provide legislation that would cover uninsured low-income families and make quality health coverage more affordable for all residents?
It guarantees access to health care as a constitutional right, not a matter of legislation which can be changed or repealed.
But framing it as we’re not providing health care without the amendment is incorrect. The fact of the matter is it’s going to start in 8 months. If the legislature felt it needed adjourn to kill the marriage bill, while I don’t agree with it, I believe that the impact on the Health Care amendment is not as dire as described. We know it’s there and it’s going to happen. While not the best situation it can be added again.
While I strongly support health care for all, I just don’t see it as a constitutional right. It seems like a legislative procedure to me, which is something the government needs to (and has so far at least started) to deal with.
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But as to a constitutional right? I dunno. Is auto insurance for all a constitutional right? Life insurance? What about anything else you buy, like good dining, safe food, safe cars?
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All these things have rules, commissions, inspections, and government action to make them fair and secure, but none of them are constitutional rights. Health insurance, like all other insurances, is a consumer good. It should be fair, equitible, available, and assured for all residents, but it seems a bit far to me to amend the constitution.
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That said, that only means I’d vote no on it on the general ballot (unless I could be convinced otherwise before then). It deserves a vote, as does the anti-marriage amendment. Vote on both.
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My understanding is that the anti-marriage amendment has little chance of passing the next legislature anyway. Do their duty and vote.
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If there’s a way to change the order, fine, go ahead. But if there isn’t and they don’t, I’m sorry, but I personally won’t be crying for either of them.
you don’t die of you don’t have auto insurance, or life insurance, or good dining!
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Lots of people do die b/c they do not have affordable comprehensive health care. and they die after living sicker lives, suffering more, and costing all of us a lot of needless and expensive health care spending. a person has undiagnosed high blood pressure. they blow out their kidneys or a vessel in their brain and end up on dialysis or paralyzed from a stroke.
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automatically, as a bonus for being so disease-ridden, they get state-funded, meaning taxpayer funded, health insurance. there’s got to be a much better way.
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health insurance just happens to be the social construct that most of the industrialized world uses as “the ticket” to access care, as in the Canadian Medicare for all from cradle to grave universal coverge system, or the Frnch, or the Germans, or the Costa Ricans… we spend on average twice as much more per person on hc and rank 37th(!) in health status outcomes.
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because we allow health care to be treated as a commodity instead of upholding it in our social contract to each other as a right.
And here they are. From the horse’s mouth.
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1: Majority of Legislature want to observe how the April, 2006 legislation rolls out to see how changes might be needed to bring about universal health prior to placing the basic rule in the Constitution.
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2: Serious concerns that Amendment would bring with it extensive and costly ltigation by some who feel they aren’t getting everything the Amendment purports to guarantee.
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3: The Amendment would crowd out other Constitutionally protected funds.
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4: The Amendment is moot: it won’t add any more protection than the current April 2006 law.
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I think you’re still entitled to the vote, but even if, passage looks grim.
All of which may be fine reasons for the legislature to vote “No”, but there is no good reason to bury it in a study committee and deny it an up-or-down vote.
Gary-
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Thanks for putting the list up. You’re right these are the questions/objections most frequently raised. But before I respond to them one by one I’d like to say again what the Amendment does and doesn’t do.
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Now to the specific objections.
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The Health Care Amendment is modeled after the Education langauge in our constitution which the SJC has held creates a right of the residents of the Commonwealth jointly, not as individuals, to demand action. The SJC has been very deferential to the Legislature on education reform – more so than many advocates would like. But its clear it has no interest in second guessing them.
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There have been three suits over about 30 years.
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The current statutory reforms will almost certainly spark litigation as all new legislation does. Terms like affordable are being defined by regulation as we speak. Resident has been defined as excluding illegal aliens. A recent case, MGH v. Commissioner of DMA, gives the sense of how deferential the SJC is on statutory/regulatory definitions. It held that if “persons of reasonable intelligence” thought a specific procedure fell within the the regulatory definition of “medically necessary” that was good enough for them.
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Future litigation will likely be focused on statutes enacted to implement the Amendment’s purpose rather than the standards set out in the Amendment itself.
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If, however, in 8-10 years its clear that significant numbers of people are categorically excluded from coverage, that medical debt still causes half the bankruptcies filed in MA, or the burden of paying for the system still falls disproportionately on one group, a group of citizens will might well get together and sue. It will be a Hancock type case and the Courts are unlikely to do much unless there are clear failures and the Legislature and/or Governor has simply refused to act.
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The unique kind of suit that could flow from the Amendment is on whether the “voter approval” requirement is triggered by a specific piece of legislation. If the Legislature adopts a rule that says we’ll put a “voter approval required” preamble on the bills we want to go to the people I suspect the SJC wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. We also have a summary and legal memo regarding that language.
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That’s what’s happening now. Premiums are growing more than 6 times faster than pay checks. Health care costs for cities and towns are growing on average 8 times the rate of new revenue. The Legislature projects that this year’s reforms will be running hundreds of millions of dollars in the red by 2009.
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To us, affordable means affordable to individuals, to employers, to the state budget, to providers and other stakeholders. That means cutting the waste out of our health care system and sharing the savings fairly to pay for current and future expansions and put money back into the pockets of premium-payers and what’s left over into other funding priorities.
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Experts disagree on how much waste there is but the usual range is 25-30% of health care spending. In MA that would be about $15 billion dollars this year – more than half of our whole state budget! It comes in different forms – unnecessary red tape, medical errors, our focus on acute care rather than prevention and management of chronic illness. We put a plan on the table that would have saved 4% of spending with modest and proven clinical and administrative savings initiatives. Those savings grow with health care inflation and would have saved almost $30 billion over ten years. Going all the way to a single payer system would have saved over $100 billion in ten years.
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The money’s there for the asking if the Legislature can show the leadership required to go get it from insitutional stakeholders.
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Au contraire. If this year’s reforms are perfect, the Amendment will lock them in and we can all enjoy health care heaven together for generations to come. If they aren’t perfect, its the stick to get the savings out and recycled to pay for health care and many other priorities.
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Since the Legislature says we’ll hit the fiscal wall in 2009 I’d vote for a BIG stick to fix what we’ve got. Or we’ll have repeals or cutbacks of key parts of this year’s reforms just as we did with the Dukakis employer mandate.
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Of course, the “tough toenails” doctrine applies to all of the above but I hope this addresses some of the concerns on a substantive grounds.
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I very strongly believe, however, that the constitutional requirement for an up or down vote is paramount.
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Barbara Waters Roop, PhD, JD, Co-Chair
Health Care Amendment Campaign
I just want to say:
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“Thank you for having this discussion!”
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Having been tied up with kids and work all day I have not been able to look at BMG, but you who know me thru this site know that it’s surely been on my mind.
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I look forward to joining the dialogue later. Thanks again.
I just wanted to write to say that I have absolutely no problem with the means to the end of this divisive anti-marriage ammendment. It is not a perfect world. If we are all honest with ourselves, we can identify times in our lives when we disregarded or minimized the process to reach what we considered to be a more important goal. Since our governemt is us then I don’t see how we can hold our legislators to a higher standard than ourselves. In all honesty,I can think of many times in my life when I broke the rules to achieve a heart felt goal. If the truth be told, on some of those occasions, I took great pride in what I did. I will tell you, and I am sure that those who know me well would concur,that I am a moral and ethical person. If you think of it,acts of civil disobedience fall into this category of putting the goal ahead of the exisiting process. I certainly hope the legislators took pride in what they did. By voting to recess they made their positions quite clear and put themselves in the line of fire from some of their more vocal constituents.
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I aso feel very impassioned about healthcare, but establishing a constitutional principle of the right to healthcare will not bring healthcare. I supported the ammendment and continue to support it because I believe it is important to establish the belief that in a developped society, healthcare should be a right, but establishing the principle or the mindset will not accomplish the goal of making sure every person gets healthcare.
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I would suggest that those fighting for this ammendment be as vocal as those fighting for the anti-marriage ammendment, use the court, get some vocal public people to speak out. Making the issue louder in the court of public opinion may have a strong effect on both the principle of the right to healthcare and in providing the healthcare.
the corrosive influence that money has on health reform work.
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it’s not as simple as you make it seem. if only.
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why does HCFA MA have an annual budget of over $2Mil a year but still not find a way to be leading the cause, leading the fight, for real universal health care reform? the answer lies in the first part of the preceeding sentence.
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how can it be legal for Partners HC System, a “non profit” THAT WE TAXPAYERS SUBSIDIZE, to post over $650 Million in profits in 2005 alone, while spinninng off for-profit subsidiaries, as told to me and a college student intern when we met with SOS Galvin about it? while they pay their CEO over $2 Mil a year salary and benefits and not pay sales taxes or property taxes b/c they’re a “non profit”?
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how can it be legal for the “non profit” BCBS of MA to post hundreds of millions in profits yearly while they raise our insurance premiums 100% over the past decade? rasie the rate thru the roof on the same folks who subsidize them due to their non profit status?
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so where does the $2 Mil annual budget for HCFA come from? Follow the money trail. See above paragraphs. See reports in the AG’s office Division of “Public Charities” where you’ll find data on Parters and BCBS as well.
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rhonda, people are doing just what you suggest. but many have become either numbed or terribly discouraged (for understandable reasons) about ever making meaningful progress toward universal health care. there are some really big differences between it and gay rights work. Billions of dollars for “stakeholders” to protect is one of them. Tens of thousands of people dying prematurely is another.
It is totally clear that healthcare is so much about money. It seesm to me that the only entity that benfits by not have one party payer is in fact the insurance industry. One party payer is something that unions, workers, and employers can certainly agree upon.
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I agree that the debate over gay marriage and healthcare are vastly different. The point was the issue of thelegislature not having voted up or down on gay marriage and thereby, likely intentionally, preventing the healthcare ammendment from even being heard.
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Heightening the debate of the healthcare ammendment is a problem. I know wrote a letter to the Globe about not having covered the healthcareammnedment not being address at all during the ConCon in May(?). I am sure I am not the only one who wrot such a letter, but the Globe chose not to print that. People on the side of anti- marriage are writing letters to the editor accross the State about “Let the People Vote.” If the issue were truly that principle then where is their outage over the healthcare ammendment not being heard.
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I do not know the details of healthcare as you do, but I do see on a daily basis the hoops and the problems of thoSe who have inadequate insurance or are perceived not to be in need of healthcare because they are mentally ill. I see my premiums increase and the care I receive dwindle. I see that I get a bill for lab work that my insurance denies for $500, but then, when I fight it, my insurance provider pays $100, case closed. What is the true cost of care? My insuranceprovider dictates that they will pay for my cholesterol to be checked every three years, but then goes on about the importance of preventitive care. Give me a break! Did you see the article in the Globe about BC/BS wanting information regarding people’s mental healthcare to demonstrate the effectiveness of the care they are receiving? They don’t care about the effectiveness of treatment. They are looking for a way not to pay for that care that they can justify.
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Healthcare in this country and the issues with access to it, are a NATIONAL DISGRACE!
the amendmend guarantees health INSURANCE (comprehensive, affordable) to all citizens. Not health CARE (which everyone can already access, on emergency and admittedly patchwork bases). The model was based on education. How much do you think is spent by the state every year defending its education against litigating parents? What the legislature feared was a huge drain on healthc are dollars diverted to litigation, as everyone wants the absolute best, top of the line doc and hospital, as long as someone else pays for it.
I believe in universal access, too, but I think it’s only fair that the amendment to the amendment (putting whatever plan the legislature comes up with) back to the voters so they can SEE THE PRICE TAG. Is that what you’re so afraid of, Barbara?
I wouldn’t want California’s petition process, but they at least provide potential cost information to the voter on each ballot question.
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The more I learn about the Health Care Amendment, the less I like. No wonder the legislators want to deep-six this.
as Barbara already discussed and created a link to in one of her prior comments. You can find the full report on the right-side of the campaign site. The Report “Action Costs Less” provides in detail how the “price tag” could save us, the taxpayers, a cool $2.2 BILLION dollars a year in health care spending.
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What is it with you folks that makes you so inclined to shoot down our best hope yet for staying on track to actually realize, and with permanence, “comprehensive affordable and equitabley financed” health care for all? I truly don’t get it. Maybe it’s just a case of having to “agree to disagree”.
First, in response to cost estimates:
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I am sure if we were to ask an industry group for its assessment, we would get a far different price tag than the HC Amendment’s figures. Does that mean that HC Amendments figures are wrong? No, not necessarily, it just highlights the necessity for independent cost estimates. California uses the legislature in its initiative process to assess costs of potential amendment.
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On the merits of HC Amendment —
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The legislative and policy environment has changed since the HC Amendment was begun. The compromise health plan may be far from ideal, but much of the general public may point out that it hasn’t even been given a chance. If is shown that specific groups have been systematically denied access either intentionally or unintentionally to health care as the Commonwealth health plan is being implemented, this is a good case for constitutional amendment. Otherwise, give policy a chance to work. What is wrong with working just towards universal access?
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And why stop with health care — isn’t there an equally strong argument for a constitutional right to affordable housing, higher education, food and clean air? What services unprotected by the Constitution would you sacrifice when spending budgets get cut?
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Based on both the HC Amendment and the Marriage Amendment, I have to say I have now grown very wary of the use of citizen initiative to create constitutional amendment. Legislation via citizen initiative, I have less issue with.
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Citizen initiative may be a process available in our Constitution, but it doesn’t mean it should be the first political strategy to use to get things done. Just because the process is democratic, doesn’t make the result good government. The direct process doesn’t work in California in my opinion. Here, 60000 votes and 25% of the legislative votes is a very low bar, in my opinion, to alter the constitution. I think initiative only makes sense for issues which could involve the composition or power of the legislature directly (ie term limits). To my mind, The silver lining of the ConCon is that if the legislatures parliamentary evasions stand there is now more uncertainty about the effectiveness of Article 48 in putting amendments to ballot.
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If the HC Amendment and the anti-same sex marriage represent a trend in increased reliance on citizen initiative, I respectfully say no thank you.
Most I imagine are in full agreement with your statement:
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“it doesn’t mean it should be the first political strategy to use to get things done.”
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You might benefit from reading others comments to get a fuller context of this situation. This is getting ridiculous.
You have devoted years of your life to this issue. I on the other hand would have never known about HCA unless I started following this blog. So I can understand if you grow impatient.
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However I feel you are quick to take offense at my growing unease about HCA. “Duh…you might benefit from reading others comments…this is getting ridiculous” really shows a lack of patience that I’m trying not to take personally.
There is indeed much to catch up on. I’m doing my best.
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In regards to ‘fuller context’, from other posts I do object to your identification of the profit motive or profit-seeking organizations in the healthcare field or the political processas an absolute evil. I object to the HCA organization’s use of an initiative process that’s only been used four times in Massachusetts history, and that creates a new civil right that has few precedents (if any) in Anglo-American jurisdictions.
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You have written that I’ve taken a “snipe” at activists, that I’ve “maligned” the organization. For the record I am an ally, and will not engage in a flame war with you.
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I am a Democrat. I am a progressive. I am liberal. I however will not fall lockstep behind this.
and all of us, to varying extents, are continuously coming up to speed. I appreciate your time and effort on it.
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BTW I think I said “swipe”, not snipe 🙂 and I most certainly didn’t use “maligned”; I know what it means but I’ve never felt at ease using it in my writing 🙂
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I, too, feel that we’re are allies and I am very glad for that. This is starting to feel kinda’ like an intense argument with someone that you really really care about and the argument is really really hard and upsetting. But if you can work it through you often have a much stronger, closer relationship as a result. Or you break up 🙂 I’m not leaving and I hope you don’t either. Seriously.