Issue Position: On Health Care

Issue Position

Massachusetts was the laboratory of democracy that gave life to the system that is now colloquially known as Obamacare. While not perfect, the Affordable Care Act has, despite relentless efforts by Republicans, expanded coverage to millions.

It is clearly not enough.

Right now, here in Massachusetts, state, municipal, school district, and household budgets are deeply affected by spiraling health care costs. Nearly half of all our state tax dollars go to paying for health care costs, and nearly one third of that amount goes to administrative costs. This situation is not sustainable. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people in the Commonwealth remain uninsured.

It is time for Massachusetts to lead again.

I will fight for Single Payer Health Care--a sustainable, universal health care model--that encompasses preventative and emergency care without co-pays, deductibles, or additional insurance costs, that can be implemented in Massachusetts and then replicated elsewhere.

My work in health care and mental health care is grounded in my Social Work background and the direct service and crisis response case management work I led in our region right out of grad school.

I've been on the ground with health care and have also analyzed it from a budgetary perspective.

At National Priorities Project, our team analyzed federal health care spending (Medicaid, Medicare, and the health care programs in the annual federal discretionary budget), tracing that money into state budgets and local communities, so that advocates could make the strongest possible case for budget priorities that reflected the best interest of all people. Our team helped educate the American people and build support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Then, while at MoveOn, I helped organize to defend the ACA from Donald Trump's relentless attacks.

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