Health care reform activists are more than two-thirds of the way to making Massachusetts the most progressive health care state America, having garnered more than 50,000 signatures of the 66,000 required to get a 2006 referendum added to the ballot.
Activist groups have until mid-November to record another 15,000 signatures, which will then allow voters to decide whether proposed taxes on cigarettes and businesses that do not provide health care for all their employees should be implemented to raise revenue for health care reform.
In addition, the proposal calls for the state to subsidize businesses that cannot afford to insure all their workers.
A coalition of religious and community groups brought together by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, including Massachusetts Affordable Care Today (MassACT), Health Care for All, Health Care for Massachusetts and MassCare, drafted the ballot question.
“Our movement has been amazing,” MassACT Campaign Field Manager David Jordan said Tuesday. He added, “This is the best plan to make health care more affordable.”
If passed, the measure would be the closest any state has come to providing universal health care to its citizens. But reform leaders say they are hesitant to call the recent proposal “universal.”
Jordan stressed that while the question does not propose universal health care, but rather it “substantially makes health care more affordable and available.”
“Our plan shifts the cost from the companies who pay to the companies who don’t pay,” Jordan said, adding, “This will be a model for the rest of the country to follow.”
Michael Carr, Manager of the Health Care for Massachusetts Campaign, said that while other states have made attempts to push universal health care through their political processes, none have succeeded to date.
“It’s a historic campaign,” he said.
Carr’s Health Care for Massachusetts campaign is also trying to pass an amendment in the state constitution to guarantee every resident the right to affordable, accessible, comprehensive health care, a measure which is also headed to the ballot in November 2006.
“This is going to take multiple steps,” Carr said, adding that getting enough signatures is a very important first step. “People couldn’t wait to sign this thing,” he said. “They want health care reform and they want it now.”
The federal Census Bureau reported in August that more than 748,000 Massachusetts residents, or 11.7 percent of the state’s total population, were uninsured
Former Massachusetts Gov. and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis lectured on America’s lack of health coverage last Wednesday night in the Boston University College of Arts and Sciences, noting that he thinks the current system “is in a death spiral.”
Dukakis added that the United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not provide some form of universal health care. Petitioners say they hope to change that distinction. Jordan said that since the petition drive kicked off on Sept. 22 with a celebration at Temple Salem in Dorchester, the petition has only gotten stronger.
“We’ve empowered and activated over 2,000 volunteers from around the state,” he said, noting that the cause has received support from faith-based groups, churches, health care advocacy groups and social advocacy groups.
Temple Israel in Boston, Holy Name Church in West Roxbury and Our Lady of Lourdes in Jamaica Plain have all held petition drives to collect signatures for the measure.
“Health care is the top priority for most residents in Massachusetts,” Jordan said, adding that the bill “is good for every resident of the Commonwealth.”
While support for this new health care petition continues to draw grassroots attention, state officials are proposing less aggressive reforms, such as those offered by Gov. Mitt Romney and Senate President Robert Travaglini.
“The governor’s approach is to mandate that individuals buy insurance,” said Health Care for All Executive Director John McDonough. “Our approach is that employers must be principally responsible. We believe in individual responsibility, we just don’t want to let employers off the hook.”
Jordan also said it was important to relieve individuals of sole responsibility for paying for health care.
“Our plan spreads the burden [of paying for insurance] across all sectors of society,” he said.
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