Proposal Passed by GRP State Committee on 11/17/2007

SUMMARY: Reaffirming the urgent need for single payer universal health care reform in Massachusetts and the failure of Chapter 58 (the health insurance mandate); authorizing the GRP to reactivate our membership in the MassCare Coalition for single payer health care; and calling for active GRP representation on and participation in the MassCare Coordinating Committee.

BACKGROUND:

• The Mass. Health Care Reform (“Chapter 58”) has failed to address the larger dimensions of the health care crisis that is engulfing the Commonwealth. While it does provide needed subsidies for some low income uninsured, it has failed to address the fundamental forces that are driving our health care system toward collapse;
• The average cost of health insurance continues to skyrocket in Massachusetts to a current cost of over $9000 per person per year (1), the highest cost in all 50 states. This price is increasingly out of reach for all but the very affluent;
• Even the middle class is now being priced out of healthcare. The most recent Census Bureau statistics show that 2/3rds of the newly uninsured have incomes exceeding $75,000;
• While Chapter 58 provides needed relief for the uninsured below poverty level, those receiving partial subsidies (in the 100-300% poverty level) must pay premiums and copays that are unaffordable to many lower income recipients;
• Chapter 58 fails to provide affordable health care for those above the subsidy ceiling. Yet Chapter 58 requires the uninsured above 300% poverty to purchase unaffordable, stripped down policies that do not protect either health or financial security. Illustrating how steep these costs are is the price a couple in their late 50s would pay for a Chapter 58 plan: an annual premium of $8,638, with a $2000 per person deductible before coverage even kicks in. Even at that, pharmaceuticals would not be covered.
• The extreme fiscal stress on our state and municipal budgets is not being resolved by Chapter 58. The burden of subsidizing a wasteful, rapidly escalating health care bill is unsustainable.
• Chapter 58 is one in a long list of over a dozen states that have attempted to solve the health insurance crisis through a major expansion of piecemeal coverage – without controlling price inflation or streamlining the costly insurance bureaucracy. Such reforms have uniformly failed within a couple years.
• The health insurance bureaucracy now consumes 31% of the health care dollar (2). The state agency providing coverage – the “Connector” – is adding an additional 4.5% to this already unbearable overhead. The cost of this administrative burden is nearly five times higher than Medicare’s and 11 times higher than Canada’s.
• The Chapter 58 “individual mandate” establishes a new punitive approach to the problem of uninsurance. Those who cannot afford health insurance face a punishment of more than $1000 per year, surpassing the fines for most criminal violations on the books, including domestic assault (maximum $1000 fine) and child labor laws ($50 fine) (3). This policy is unjust, likely unenforceable, and proving to be exceedingly unpopular. As of September, 2007, less than 2% of those required to purchase such coverage had signed up (4).
• Adopting a single payer system of health insurance, as provided for in the Massachusetts Health Care Trust, would save $7.7 billion annually that could be redirected from paperwork and insurance profits to insure coverage for all uninsured, and improved coverage for everyone else.
• Experience in developed nations across the globe is virtually uniform in showing that single payer systems are the only means of achieving universal health care.

PROPOSAL:

• The Green-Rainbow Party reaffirms our commitment to single-payer health care reform that provides universal, quality, affordable coverage. The single payer system envisioned for Massachusetts would be analogous to the current Medicare system, where insurance is provided by government, but health care itself is provided by independent practitioners. Single payer health care can be viewed as Medicare that is extended to cover people of all ages.
• The Green-Rainbow Party urges continued support for the passage of the Mass. Health Care Trust, which would bring a single payer system into being in Massachusetts.
• The Green-Rainbow Party affirms that reform of health care financing must also be accompanied by health care reforms that allow for a more comprehensive, integral approach to health. The current emphasis on pharmacologic and technologic treatments must be expanded to include needed public health and preventive medicine practices – including a focus on nutrition; exercise; social supports; substance abuse prevention and treatment; prevention of toxic exposures in air, water, food, and consumer products; violence prevention; occupational safety; home and community-based care; holistic health care, culturally sensitive health care practices and delivery, and more. The spectrum of coverage must also be broadened to include mental health, eye and dental care. This kind of comprehensive approach to health care can prevent disease from taking root in the first place – and is worth its weight in gold for the savings of health, lives and dollars.
• The Green-Rainbow Party Administrative Committee is hereby authorized to recognize a volunteer representative to the MassCare Coordinating Committee, the state advocacy group for single payer health care in Massachusetts. The delegate will report to the Platform Committee.

1. Cape Care, Real Opportunities, Hard Work Required. Dr.Alan Sagar. 3/11/06. http://capecare.info/resources/sagercctalk060311.pdf
2. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein. Health reform failure. Boston Globe. 9/17/07.
3. The dark side of healthcare reform. Benjamin Day. Boston Globe 8/30/07.
4. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein. Health reform failure. Boston Globe. 9/17/07.