I urge the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing to report An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts, Bills H.1405 and S.860, as Ought to Pass.

The Commonwealth can guarantee equitable health care access for every resident of the Commonwealth through the Massachusetts Health Care Trust, a single payer of all medically necessary care. All residents will be guaranteed access, without regard to financial or employment status, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, previous health problems, or geographic location.

The Act will provide continuous access to health care services, without the current need for repeated re-enrollments or changes when employers choose new plans and residents change jobs.

Coverage will be comprehensive. "All medically necessary care" includes eyeglasses, hearing aids, dental care, long-term care, and more.

It has never been clearer that the current private insurance-based health care system is failing our Commonwealth. Private for-profit hospitals such as Steward and Tenet are closing or reducing services leaving some communities without vital services. Non-profit hospitals are struggling. An estimated 40% of residents are foregoing health care because of high out-of-pocket costs, and an estimated 880,000 Massachusetts residents have medical debt.

Health care providers are increasingly frustrated about their working conditions, exhausted by the complex and onerous paperwork, and demoralized by refusals of authorizations for care.

A single payer system would come as a relief for municipalities who struggle to fund schools and services as they face double digit health insurance increases. Businesses would be freed from the responsibility of covering their employees’ health care, and their required health care contribution through the payroll tax would be consistent every year, increasing their long-term viability.

The Massachusetts Health Care Trust would receive all current federal and state health care spending, but it would eliminate insurance premiums and all other out-of-pocket expenses. Instead of out-of-pocket costs, there are new taxes that are much lower. Each tax has a $20,000 exemption. For example, employers will pay 7.5% of payroll (8% if employing 100 or more) and employees will pay 2.5% of wages and salaries.

The taxes can be much lower than premiums and out -of-pocket costs because the system reduces current spending by about 30%!

Single payer is popular! Citizens, when asked, strongly support it. Every state election, voters overwhelmingly approve single payer ballot questions in Representative districts across the state, including districts with members of this committee:

The 10th Middlesex (Lawn) voted 68.5% for single payer in 2024. In 2022, the 12th Worcester (Kilcoyne) and 1st Essex (Shand) voted in favor 55.7% and 62.5% respectively. In 2018 the 1st Hampshire (Sabadosa) voted 80.2% in favor.

Mass-Care has run this question 68 times beginning in 1998. The average Yes vote percentage is 67.5%. There has never been a No majority vote.

It has been part of the Massachusetts Democratic platform for years. Over 100 organizations, including the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, other unions, Democratic town committees, public health and community organizations, etc., are part of the coalition organized by the Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care (Mass-Care).

The Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians just endorsed the Act.

Given this broad mandate, and in light of ongoing health care financial crises, the Legislature should finally give the Act proper attention and report it out of committee favorably.