SPRINGFIELD — As a bill that would make Massachusetts the first state in the country to adopt a single-payer healthcare system makes its way through the Legislature, activists are urging Baystate Health, the largest healthcare provider in western Massachusetts, to publicly support the legislation.
On Tuesday evening, a group of about a dozen people gathered outside the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield — something they do every month — to rally in support of “An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts,” (H. 5590/S.860), which aims to create a single-payer trust to replace insurance companies and provide healthcare for all Massachusetts residents at no direct cost.
The Massachusetts Healthcare Trust would be financed using existing programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, as well as four new taxes on employer payroll, employee payroll, self-employed income and unearned income. Supporters estimate those taxes would cost much less than current insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket payments.
“We are here every second Tuesday of the month to demand the board of directors at Bay State, which meets every second Tuesday of the month, really hears us, sees us, looks at us, and understands that we are hurting because of their policies, because of their lobbies,” protester Gloria Caballero said outside Baystate Tuesday evening. “We have the right to demand healthcare that is universal, that is fair and that is just … We’re demanding the politicians and the board of directors to support their people.”
In July, the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing reported the bill favorably for the first time in the measure’s 30-year history in Massachusetts, marking a major milestone for the state’s single-payer movement.
The committee advanced a redrafted version that calls for creating a commission to study models, financing systems and equitable implementation of single-payer health care.
The bill is now before the House Committee on Ways and Means.
“We really want to be part of this conversation that is happening nationally,” state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, one of the bill’s lead sponsors in the House, said in July. “So we really aligned our efforts to what other states are doing nationally so that all of us are rowing in the same direction.”
On Tuesday, activists held signs reading “You die when insurance decides” and “Healthcare for all big and small” as cars passed on Chestnut Street, some honking in support.
Among them was Nadia Milleron, an independent candidate for the 1st Congressional District seat in the U.S. House. In response to a commonly held concern that the proposed legislation faces opposition from the state’s more than $84 billion private health insurance industry, Milleron said she was confident that enough voices and grassroots organizing could move the bill into law.
“[Baystate’s] board of directors has a lobbyist on Beacon Hill who is actively lobbying against a healthcare trust in in Massachusetts,” Milleron said. “The insurance companies’ business model is to deny care to make a profit, and so that’s a health denial system, not a healthcare system … it’s not pie in the sky. We can stand out here, we can move to Washington; move as a group, as a big group of 10,000 people. We can demand and get what we need — it’s our tax money.”
Attempts to reach Baystate’s press office for comment on Wednesday were unsuccessful.
Jennifer Ramos joined the protest alongside her mother, Beatriz, to stand for the idea that healthcare is a human right that should not be restricted to only those who can afford it. She said her mother does not have health insurance.
Others rallying outside the hospital, such as Daniel Barker, explained that everywhere he has lived — except for the U.S. — has provided universal healthcare. Paraphrasing the famous comedian George Carlin, Barker joked that even cultures as “aristocratic” as the United Kingdom provide universal healthcare, while the U.S. doesn’t.
“I’m 84, and [the British], they’re aristocratic people, but they believe in the system which looks out for everybody’s health,” Barker said. “It would seem to me that a society would want something like that, but our owners don’t want us to have it … it’s a big club and you’re not in it.”
