Legislative Alert       11  Tishrei   5764      October 7, 2003

JALSA SUPPORTS HEALTH INSURANCE OVERHALL
In Massachusetts:
The establishment of The Massachusetts Health Care Trust Fund
has been proposed by the Legislature. The Joint Committee on Health Care
is holding a hearing on October 8th at 10AM

We need you there
Please come and show your support for the
Massachusetts Health Care Trust (S.686).

Hearing and Lobby Day
Wednesday, October 8th, 10 AM
Hearing: Gardner Auditorium
Lobby Day Coordination: Room 222
Massachusetts State House, Boston

What you can do:
1. Attend the hearing and lobby day.
We need to show broad support for universal, single payer health care.
Come and bring your friends, family, and colleagues.

2 Call, write, or email your legislators and ask them to testify in support of S.686
(see sample letter below)
If you are able to attend the hearing ask them for a meeting after the hearing
as part of our lobby day.

3 Call, write, or email members of the Health Care Committee
and tell them you want them to report S.686 out of committee
with an "OUGHT TO PASS" recommendation.

On the National Front
A plan to encourage renewed public conversation about single-payer health insurance
has been developed by the Physicians for a National Health Program. It was printed in
the Journal of the American Medical Association and has been endorsed by nearly 8,000
physicians and health care professionals. This plan includes coverage for over
43.6 million uninsured Americans (an increase of 2.4 million new uninsured over last year),
as well as incorporating ways to control costs. (See: www.physiciansproposal.org/.
for executive summary of JAMA article and supporting materials). JALSA has been able
to have expertise available for our discussions on this subject via Rashi Fein, PhD of Harvard
Medical School. Dr. Fein was asked by JAMA to provide an editorial critique on the
recent proposal and his comments may be found at http://jewishalliance.org/info/0000005f.htm.

A recent CNN poll last week found that a candidate’s position on health care was cited
just below terrorism and the economy in a rank order of importance. The voters care about
health insurance!
We urge you to contact your Congresspersons and candidates to get this urgent issue
back on the front burner

 

BACKGROUND INFO
WHAT IS UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE?
Single payer refers to a single government agency run by consumers, providers and government officials.
It will receive all the funding for health care and will pay all the bills for a comprehensive universal health
care system. Having one entity running health care will effect huge savings by simplifying the system
and reducing the huge administrative costs that now make up 39% of our health care costs. It is not
socialized medicine, but a streamlined health care payment system and a promise of equal, quality health care for everyone.

A single payer system means:
1. UNIVERSAL COVERAGE
2. QUALITY HEALTH CARE coverage for everyone including all medically prescribed acute and chronic care,
hospital care, home care, medications, and mental health care
3. FREEDOM TO CHOOSE one's own doctor
4. MONEY SPENT ON DIRECT PATIENT CARE instead of excessive profits and paperwork
5. COST CONTROL (the only health care delivery plan that can control costs) because it allows for an overall
health care budget, sensible resource planning, and targeted preventative programs, all of which would
reduce health care costs.
6. HEALTH-CARE DECISIONS made by physician and patient with no bureaucratic oversight.
7. SIMPLICITY, with no co-pays, deductibles, insurance caps, denials of care, preexisting conditions, or
loss of insurance with job changes
8. AFFORDABILITY- most people would pay less with a single payer plan because of the efficiency of the
system and the ability to control costs
9. FAIR FUNDING by government programs already in existence, employers, and health care taxes which
would be less than the out of pocket expenses most
people pay now.

Jewish Values and Health Care
Our tradition teaches us that human life is of infinite value and that the preservation of life supersedes
almost all other considerations. We believe that God endowed humanity with the understanding and ability
to become partners with God in making a better world. The use of our wisdom to cure illnesses has been a
central theme in Jewish thought and history.
Providing health care is not just an obligation for the patient and the doctor, but for society as well. Maimonides,
a revered Jewish scholar, listed health care first on his list of the ten most important communal services that
a city had to offer to its residents (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot IV: 23). Almost all self-governing Jewish
communities throughout history set up systems to ensure that all their citizens had access to health care.
Doctors were required to reduce their rates for poor patients, and when that was not sufficient, communal
subsidies were established (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 249:16; Responsa Ramat Rahel of Rabbi Eliezer
Waldernberg, sections 24-25.) (Excerpted from the Religious Action Center’s website: www.rac.org. )

 

Recommended for more information:
LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF MASSACHUSETTS 2003 FALL CONFERENCE
Fixing Our Broken Health Care System:
Incremental or Comprehensive Change?
Congressman John F. Tierney, Keynote Speaker

Saturday, October 25, 2003
133 Portland Street, Boston, MA
617-523-2999 * Fax 617-248-0881 * lwvma@lwvma.org.  * www.lwvma.org.

Links for more information:
www.masscare.org. Mass Care
www.uhcef.org. Universal Health Care Education Fund
www.lwvmass.org.  League of Women Voters of Massachusetts
www.pnhp.org.   Physicians for a National Health Program
Current members of Joint Committee on Health Care, Massachusetts:
http://jewishalliance.org/info/00000055.htm.

Sample letter to Massachusetts legislators:
IT IS TIME TO TAKE ACTION ON BEHALF OF THE HEALTH OF YOUR CONSTITUENTS.
IT IS TIME TO STAND UP FOR UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE.
Your action is needed to support health care in Massachusetts that is affordable, universal, accessible,
comprehensive, portable and accountable. Senate, No. 686 deserves to be voted out of committee;
there will then be time for serious discussion and debate, hearings, amendments, changes.
WHEN: Wednesday, October 8, 2003
WHAT: Hearing by Joint Committee on Health Care on Senate, No. 686
WHERE: Gardner Auditorium
We count on you, and your constituents count on you to:
1. Sign up to testify at the hearing.
2. If you can’t testify, contact members of the Joint Committee. Tell them Senate, No. 686 should
be voted OUT OF COMMITTEE (Room 130, State House, telephone, 617-722-2130)
3. Contact the House Speaker or Senate President. Tell them to place a priority on legislative
consideration of Senate, No. 686. Contact your legislators to support this critical issue.
Please get on board! Let the Joint Committee hear from you, that you want Senate, No. 686 voted out of committee,
that you want ECONOMICALLY EFFICIENT HEALTH CARE COVERAGE FOR ALL YOUR CONSTITUENTS.
Can we count on you? Can your constituents count on you?
Please reply.
Thank you.
(Insert your name and city/town)
 

Additional Action Effort
Constitutional Initiative Petition to Insure Health Care for All in Massachusetts:

The Committee for Health Care for Massachusetts (a statewide effort being led by the people of
Massachusetts, including health professionals, community leaders, organizations, patients and their families)
has written a constitutional initiative petition whose goal is to ensure that no state resident go without affordable,
comprehensive and equitably financed health insurance. This petition is directly related to the effort for
single payer reform in Mass. If passed, it would protect attempts to repeal any universal health care legislation.

For more information on the petition (including ways to sign) see www.healthcarefornass.org.

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