In case anyone missed this excellent Letter to the Editor in today’s Globe on the issue of state Health Care reform. (I also submitted this as formal input to the Patrick/Murray HC working group):
written by Ben Day, Exec Driector of MassCare (of which I am a member who just happened to ride to Worcester today with Ben and a local doc for a half-day MassCare mtg. Oh the joys of Saturdays…)
“Health system is what ails us, not city workers
The Boston Globe, December 9, 2006
IN YOUR Nov. 30 editorial “Hale workers, sick cities,” the Globe implies that Boston employees enjoy Cadillac health coverage while taxpayers foot the bill and receive eroded, Yugo municipal service in return. The Globe proposes making city workers pay more and merging with the state employee health pool as “obvious” ways to control costs.
For the past two years the City of Boston has ranked sixth among the top employers in the state whose workers have had to receive public health assistance: In 2006 more than 1,500 Boston employees and 1,000 of their children relied on Medicaid or the Free Care Pool. This makes the city a worse offender than all but five other large employers in the state. Are these the workers onto whose backs the Globe is proposing to shift healthcare costs?
The state, like Boston, has seen healthcare premiums for its workers skyrocket. Boston’s crisis is representative of a national trend faced by governments, businesses, and individuals. The problem is rooted in our healthcare system. Making healthcare a basic right that you don’t receive through the workplace has effectively controlled costs and provided universal access to every other developed nation in the world. It’s time for Massachusetts to have hale workers and hale cities.
BENJAMIN DAY
Jamaica Plain
The writer is executive director of Mass-Care, a nonprofit that tries to win single payer healthcare for Massachusetts.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
