Massachusetts
Massachusetts Information
Contact Information
Mass-Care
Website: http://www.masscare.org/
E-mail: info@masscare.org
Cape Care Coalition
Website: www.capecare.info
E-mail: capecare@earthlink.net
Phone: 1-877-700-8070
State Legislation
The Massachusetts Health Care Trust (S.703) (link)
The Massachusetts Health Care Trust bill (S.703) would create a Single Payer Health Care System for Massachusetts, guaranteeing first rate health care coverage for every resident of the state, while saving money for state and local government, businesses, and residents.
Media Contact
David Himmelstein
617.665.1032
DHimmelstein@challiance.org
Dr. Himmelstein practices and teaches primary care internal medicine at the Cambridge Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard. He is a co-founder of PNHP and one of two National Coordinators for the first five years of the organization. Dr. Himmelstein co-authored PNHP’s original proposal, its long-term care proposal, and its proposal for financing a national health program. He recently co-founded the Center for a National Health Program Studies at Harvard. His research focuses on problems in access to care, administrative waste, and the advantages of a national health program.
Steffie Woolhandler
617.665.1032
swoolhandler@challiance.org
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard and co-director of the Harvard Medical School General Internal Medicine Fellowship program. She worked in 1990-91 as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health policy fellow at the Institute of Medicine and the U.S. Congress. Dr. Woolhandler is a frequent speaker and has written extensively on health policy. A co-founder of PNHP and current Board member, she co-edits PNHP’s Newsletter and is a principal author of PNHP articles published in the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Woolhandler is also co-author of the PNHP slide show and chartbook.
Rachel Nardin
617 667-4382
rnardin@bidmc.harvard.edu
Dr. Nardin is a staff neurologist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. She is also the chair of the MA chapter of PNHP.
Gordon Schiff
617 732-4814
gschiff@partners.org
Gordon Schiff is currently Associate Director of the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He was Professor of Medicine at Rush University and senior attending physician at Cook County Hospital where he worked for more than 30 years as Director of Clinical Quality Research and Improvement for the Department of Medicine, and during the 1990’s director Cook County’s large General Medical Clinic for nearly a decade. His was PI and Director of AHRQ-funded Rush-Cook County Developmental Center for Research in Patient Safety (DCERPS, Diagnosis Errors and Evaluation Research (DEER) Project, whose activities and recommendations are summarized in a chapter in the AHRQ Advances in Patient Safety monograph (on AHRQ website). He is Clinical Director of the recently awarded TOP-MED (Tools for Optimizing Prescribing, Monitoring and Education) CERT (Center for Education and Research in Therapeutics) based at the UIC College of Pharmacy.
Dr Schiff has published numerous patient safety and medication prescribing improving articles in Annals of Int Med, JAMA, Arch Intern Med, Medical Care, Am J Health System Pharm. He is editor of Getting Results: Reliably Communicating and Acting on Critical Test Results published by Joint Commission Resources in 2006, and author of the section on Diagnostic Error in the forthcoming WHO monograph Current Issues in Patient Safety: A Global Perspective published the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety. He is a member of the editorial Boards of Medical Care, Journal of Public Health Policy, and the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. He is recipient of the 2005 Institute of Medicine Chicago (IOMC) patient safety leader of the year award, the Institute for Safe Medical Practices (ISMP) 2006 Lifetime Achievement award, and in 2006 was selected by Modern Healthcare as one of the top “30 people likely to shape health care in the years and decades ahead.”
Dr. Schiff is a founding member and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), author of the PNHP JAMA paper on quality health care reform, and is guest editor the October 2008 special issue of Medical Care devoted to the topic of health insurance in the U.S.
Pat Downs Berger | 617.566.6847 | patberger@yahoo.com
Dr. Berger is the Co-Chair of Mass-Care, the Single Payer organization in MA sponsoring the Single Payer Health Care Trust bill (S 703). Dr. Berger is retired internist who worked for 14 years at the Harvard St. Neighborhood Health Center in Dorchester, MA, the Harvard Community Health Plan for two years, and then in private practice in Brookline for 9 years.
State Organizations Endorsing HR676
- Women’s Community Cancer Project (Cambridge, MA)
Local Unions Endorsing HR676
- UAW Local 2322, Holyoke, MA
- IBEW Local 2222, Boston, MA
- Local 2321, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), North Andover, MA
- Local 2322, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Middleboro, MA
- Local 2324, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Springfield, MA
- Local 2325, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Northborough, MA
- Massachusetts State CAP Council, United Auto Workers (UAW)
- Local 2313, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Hanover, MA
- Massachusetts Nurses Association
November 5, 2008
Single Payer Ballot Question Passes by Landslide in 10 Districts
In an election that has brought out the highest voter turnout in Massachusetts probably since 1928, local ballot initiatives supporting single payer and opposing individual mandates passed by landslide margins in all ten legislative districts where they appeared. With almost all precincts tallied, roughly 73 percent of 181,000 voters in the ten districts voted YES to the following:
November 3, 2008
Medical costs still burden many despite insurance
By Kay Lazar | Boston Globe
“Many of the [insurance] policies out there have such huge copayments and deductibles that people can’t afford care,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a primary care doctor at Cambridge Health Alliance.
July 23, 2008
Happy Birthday Medicare
By Judy Deutsch | Guest Columnist | Sudbury Town Crier
July 30th will be Medicare’s 43rd birthday. And many people across our nation will be celebrating the event by letting their Congressional representatives know that they want to be included, too. They’ll do so be sending a birthday cake and/or card to their representatives saying, ” Happy Birthday Medicare: Now It’s time for Medicare for all” or “Support HR 676.“
February 15, 2008
Asking about single-payer for Massachusetts
By Dr. Susanne King | Berkshire Eagle
I often talk with people about health care reform, advocating for single-payer health care as the only answer to problems that include 47 million uninsured people in the United States, and an even greater number of underinsured; the economic pressure on businesses; and the rising costs of health care for our country, states, towns and individuals. Here are the questions people most frequently ask.
January 24, 2008
Cost of health initiative up $400m
By Alice Dembner | The Boston Globe
Spending on the [Massachusetts’] landmark health insurance initiative would rise by more than $400 million next year, representing one of the largest increases in the $28.2 billion state budget the governor proposed yesterday.
October 30, 2007
Unhappy doctors, unhappy patients
Susanne L. King, M.D. | Berkshire Eagle
Physicians in Massachusetts are not alone in their dissatisfaction with the current health care system. More and more doctors across the country are joining Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), which advocates for single-payer health care, funded and administered by the government. PNHP membership has increased to more than 14,000 members, and is growing rapidly. Single-payer health care is not socialized medicine; physician practices and hospitals would still be private, and patients would have their choice of providers. Single-payer health care is about the administration of our health care funds, not the delivery of health care.
September 17, 2007
Health reform failure
By Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein | The Boston Globe
IN 1966 - just before Medicare and Medicaid were launched - 47 million Americans were uninsured. By 1975, the United States had reached an all time low of 21 million without coverage. Now, according to the Census Bureau’s latest figures, we’re back where we started, with 47 million uninsured in 2006 - up 2.2 million since 2005. But this time, most of the uninsured are neither poor nor elderly.
August 30, 2007
The dark side of healthcare reform
By Benjamin Day | The Boston Globe
There is little evidence that eroding safety net programs actually helps improve participation in the labor market or the healthcare market. This does, however, succeed in punishing the poor, throwing low-income communities back on their own resources, and increasing the stigma upon safety net recipients. In the case of the new [Massachusetts] health law, this is a particularly meaningless and insulting exercise, as the law itself provides stiff financial penalties for any who are deemed able to afford health insurance but fail to enroll in a public or a private plan.
August 6, 2007
A strike for better healthcare
By Stephen J. Bergman | The Boston Globe
SOON AFTER HMO/managed care came to Massachusetts in the late ‘80s, I got a call from a patient I had admitted to the 28-day alcohol unit at the hospital. He said that he was being discharged after three days because that was all that the HMO would now pay for alcoholism. He said the HMO representative told him to go out and get drunk again and they would readmit him.