Someone recently put up a comment elsewhere on BMG criticizing the MA health care constitutional amendment campaign on the grounds that it was attempting to make health care “free”. I thought about their words and it came to mind that maybe others have that misperception too. Maybe it would be useful to set a couple things straight.
No one’s asking for or trying to get free health care. ‘Cuz nothing’s really free, is it? And in regards to health care, we’re all paying in to the health care system big time, through the nose, already. Anyone who pays any kind of a tax pays into the HC system. I mean, US taxpayer-funded public budgets pay the absolute largest health care bills on earth, and we’re paying over and over again with state and the federal budgets picking up the largest tabs.
What the health care amendment campaign does do is set some LONG OVERDUE standards for the health care system and to enshrine these in our constitution. The point of this is to make the system accountable to us, the folks who pay for it. With permanence. The amendment language says “ensure that all residents have access to COMPREHENSIVE, AFFORDABLE AND EQUITABLY FINANCED HEALTH INSURANCE”. It does not say”free health insurance”.
BTW the overwhelming majority of liberals do feel strongly that universal health care is a priority. In fact, as poll after poll shows, many others want quality universal coverage to be the standard too. The Dems could gain a lot of ground with this one.
Is that it used what I consider a loophole to get a low bar for passage, and no amendment should be that easy to pass. Or it’ll be just that easy to recind it, eventually making our constitution meaningless. If it’s wrong for the anti-gay folks, it’s wrong for all.
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I believe there’s an argument for putting the right to health care in the state (or federal) constitution. For one thing, we need a serious attitude adjustment in how we regard health care – it’s essential to pursuing life, liberty, and happiness, and yet it’s not available to all. I’m not 100% convinced yet but I’m warming up to the idea.
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However, I think it should have to reach a higher bar than 50 out of 200 legislators to get in front of the public for a simple majority vote. Not that I blame the people who put this amendment forward for using an existing loophole, especially if the “other side” is using it, but it’s still not right. Our constitution needs to be more sacred than that, for all the reasons I’ve stated here and on my blog.
Criticize what is a valid option and the requirements of said option (the citizen initiative process to amend the state constitution) but I would argue that it is not accurate nor fair to call it a loophole.
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The framers of the constituion created the citizen initiative process as a valid option, not as a “loophole choice”.
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I also strongly disagree that it’s “Easy” or “low bar” to be out on the streets week after week as a citizen activist talking with folks about an issue and the proposed amendment language. This is required to be done by scores of people as part of the effort to collect 70,000 registered voter signatures, each in the right box on the right form and no more than a certain % from a certain district etc etc etc. That initial part of the initiative process takes almost 2 years and then you’ve got to educate leges, their staff, and their constituents to lobby for the 50 yes votes to advance it to the 2nd 50 yes votes in the next 2-year legislative session.
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I take great affront that you would try to convince me and others that the entire citizen initiative process is an “easy” “low bar” choice. Extremely thoghtful, deliberative, and difficult discussions and decisions led to the initiative amendment option to be chosen to advance the health care amendment to the statewide ballot.
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Big money’s oppressive, unhealthy, and pervasive influence on our democracy and our political process factored in to the decision to go the initiative, 50 yes votes in 2 two-year consecutive sessions, route. And ya can’t get much bigger than the $62 BILLION spent on health care in our fair Commonwealth this year!!
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I will say I’ve appreciated your other comments/posts on this issue (wish you’d put a link to your proposed solution). Maybe times have changed and we as a Commonwealth do need to look at these kinds of initiative process issues. Possibly a group (led by you?) would want to put forth a constitutional amendment to remedy what is seen by some as a collective problem. I’ll stay tuned.
You seem to think that the legislative vote is the only requirement…the previous commenter has done a good job of setting forth the rather daunting requirements before an amendment is brought before the legislature.
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The other problem is the notion of that the constitution should be harder to amend…which I suspect comes from a common notion that state constitutions should be as streamlined and spare as the Federal constitution…not true. State governments are not limited as the federal government is. On the other hand, one problem I have with pursuing guaranteed health care through a state constitutional amendment is that there is a limit to the resources a state can access to provide universal healthcare…it is something that really needs a national solution. The states can raise the bar up to a point, but what is needed is a national, single-payer healthcare system.
that the money’s already in the system to provide all state residents comprehensive affordable health insurance coverage! But that’s not the happy ending, not by any means. I’m no Polly-Anna. The tough, very tough part comes to the fore with the work of re-distributing how those existing HC dollars are spent, and to some degree how they are collected (from whom, how much from each, etc).
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And the other good news is that our work here in MA and in many other states where activists are tackling this issue head on (not to be confused with the well intentioned folks and their not-so-well intentioned enablers who are doing incrementalism into eternity thankyouverymuch)this work builds into creating the political movement that is necessary for achieving fundamental system reforms spelled out by Alice on the national level
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There is a method to this madness, my friends. To learn more about the national work that many of us here in MA are a part of, check out not only the above link for http://www.Healthcare-NOW.org based in NYC but also the Herndon Alliance coalition based in Seattle. Herndon is heading up major projects aimed at using applied research for framing, messaging and communications tools for health justice work in every corner of the country, strategically building toward successful reform on the national level.
There are plenty of services government provides for free. When was the last time you paid your street light bill?
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Health care is, of course, a trickier because we just don’t have the wealth to fund a “whatever care it takes” system. Some conditions and risks really are too expensive to fund. That means some mechanism must set limits. Right now that mechanism is a combination of insurance companies and personal wealth.
That would be … the last time I paid my taxes.
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The title of the post is correct — no government service is truly free. We just pay for them in different ways.
There are some things we pay for by way of taxes for which no is charged the use. With street lights, nocturnal people folk are charged no more than early birds who, theoretically, use them less.
Yes, certain people use certain services more or less than others, but I look at it as an investment in community.
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Same goes for health care. We’re all paying for it right now and not in the most organized and efficient way.
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(and I think that goes along with your point?)
It bears repeating. The obvious inefficiencies are these:
If Beacon Street or its street lights were run privately, so that one bought walking passes or paid by the lumen, Beacon Street would become more expensive and more bureaucratic not less.