May 2025 Healthcare Update
Last month we mentioned that we are working on "opening up" college students as an advocacy group for single payer healthcare. We are moving forward on that and will have more to report next month.
We are excited that the Single Payer/Medicare for All national bill will be introduced Tuesday, April 29th. The 11:00 AM launch should be live-streamed on the YouTube channel of main sponsor Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA), and then available here.
Given the continuing chaos in Congress, we are focusing most attention on state healthcare laws. Along with Mass-Care allies, Anna Carter and I attended Lobby Day in Boston on April 1st for the state-based single payer bill. It is first in the list, pictured below and linked here, of five Health Care bills supported (none opposed) by LWVMA. Four of the five are repeated from last session, but some may be moving toward passage. (For example, the "Momnibus" bill for improved maternal and child care passed last summer and moved off the list after a couple of sessions of work.)
It was a surprise to see that state-based vaccination information collection has been on our supported list for at least two sessions. Since it is even more crucial this year (with an anti-vax Secretary of Health and Human Services), it may have a better chance than before. We are also watching the Death with Dignity bill, in its second go-round, which has also had more movement this year than in prior years.
The one new bill introduced, S1526, banning for-profit acute care hospitals, was drafted in response to the Steward mass bankruptcies and hospital closures last year. The hospital assets (including the land) were hollowed out and "sold for parts" right out from under them by the for-profit, private equity Steward that bought them. The national LWV Health Care Reform network was following the development of that crisis before it happened. My testimony at Lobby Day in 2023 focused on Steward and predicted a bad ending. The Joint Committee on Health Care Financing listened politely, but did not heed my advice, and are now in reaction mode dealing with the fallout. My testimony—discussing why sometimes we would prefer not to be "right"—is available here: https://lwvhealthcarereform.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/MA-M4A_PrivateEquity_Testimony_BP-shorter.pdf
Please contact Barbara Pearson for more information.