To the editor: Question 6 on the ballots for the 3rd Berkshire District calls for "legislation to create a single-payer system of universal health care that provides all Massachusetts residents with comprehensive health care coverage ... and eliminates the role of (private, for-profit) insurance companies in health care by creating an insurance trust fund that is publicly administered."
According to the Massachusetts Health Insurance Survey, 2.4 percent of state residents were uninsured in 2021, the lowest uninsured rate in the U.S. However, even for those who have insurance, 41 percent of survey respondents said they had trouble affording health care. Affordability was not restricted to those with the lowest incomes. Those with moderate family incomes struggled the most with costs. These people were not eligible for government insurance and found that the only affordable private insurance plans had prohibitively high deductibles and co-pays.
I practiced primary care internal medicine in Pittsfield and had many patients who could not afford prescriptions or co-payments in emergency rooms and some medical offices. My clinic staff and I spent hours per day dealing with multiple insurance companies, and one full-time employee's only job was to try to obtain insurance for patients. The single-payer system espoused in Question 6 would largely eliminate these problems.
Many are concerned that single-payer publicly funded health care would increase state taxes. On a recent visit to Sweden, where there is government universal health care, I asked people about this. They all answered that while their taxes were high, this was more than offset by savings in health care costs. They also did not worry about losing insurance if unemployed. Here, under single-payer, municipal governments would not have to pay nearly so much as they do now for health care insurance for teachers and other municipal employees. Pittsfield would save an estimated $20 million annually. This should cause downward pressure on local property taxes.
Ballot questions calling for single-payer health insurance have appeared in previous elections and have been strongly supported by voters. So, I asked our state legislators why these bills (H.1239 and S.744) have not been voted out of committee. They said it was because they were not hearing directly from their constituents supporting these bills.
Therefore, while voting yes on Question 6 is important, it is not sufficient. Please consider emailing or calling your state legislator to support the establishment of single-payer health care in Massachusetts.
Dr. Charles I. Wohl, Lenox