Michele Craig and Patty Healey: Health care on the ballot in Southampton, Westfield

Kaboompics.com
Published: 10-29-2024 8:00 PM |
Our grassroots volunteers want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the people of Southampton and Westfield. In recent weeks we’ve been warmly welcomed when sharing information on how Southampton and Westfield residents can make their voices heard at the ballot box on the critical issue of health care. There is still one more opportunity to learn more about ballot Question 6 on Saturday, Nov. 2 at the Atheneum Library, 6 Elm St. in Westfield.
Americans continue to rank health care affordability as a top concern. Fortunately, voters in the Southampton and Westfield precincts will have the opportunity on Nov. 5 to vote on a nonbinding ballot question that asks if they support single-payer health care in Massachusetts, a universal public health insurance program that would cover everyone, for all medical needs, and save money for the vast majority of residents and for the state — an estimated $38 billion annually for the commonwealth.
Ballot Question 6 reads: “Shall the Representative from this District be instructed to vote for legislation to create a single-payer system of universal health care, that would provide all Massachusetts residents with comprehensive health care coverage, including the freedom to choose doctors and other health care professionals, facilities, and services and that would eliminate the role of insurance companies in healthcare by creating a publicly administered insurance trust fund?”
Despite Massachusetts’s high coverage rate, one in six residents had medical debt in 2019. Ten percent of those with medical debt in Massachusetts owe $8,000 or more. Four of five insured Massachusetts residents with family medical debt said that cost sharing required by their insurers — deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, uncovered medical services — were the cause of their debt.
This “underinsurance” is the ugly underbelly of our health insurance landscape. A growing number of Massachusetts residents have insurance but can’t afford to use it, so they forgo needed medical treatment — as premiums continue to escalate, as employers shift more cost to workers in the form of higher deductibles and co-pays.
Our national leaders have dropped the ball on health care. It’s time for Massachusetts to fix the problem ourselves and save $38 billion in the process. More information on the ballot question can be found at www.masscare.org.
Michele Craig
Retired RN, South Deerfield
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Patty Healey
Retired RN, Florence