From Capitol Hill to Beacon Hill

Yesterday, Barbara Roop and Michael Carr went to Washington and met with leaders from America’s Agenda and the Center for American Progress and briefed them on the Campaign. They also made a presentation to a group of health care leaders at a lunchtime program sponsored by the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO. The meetings went extremely well, and folks in Washington can help spread the word about the Amendment. As the Campaign moves forward, we will be looking for their support.

This morning, we joined health care advocates of all stripes as we converged on Beacon Hill to show our support for fundamental health care reform. We watched as the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing Committee met in an overflowing Gardner Auditorium to hear about the problems facing the health care system in Massachusetts and possible solutions to help fix it. Senate President Traviglini and Governor Romney testified, as did a variety of leaders from business, medicine, and advocacy groups. Standing in the room, the biggest impression the event made on us was the demand for fundamental health care reform. The bills before the committee would both go a long way towards making that reform a reality.

Looking back on the history of health care reform in Massachusetts, we can’t forget that the Legislature has passed big initiatives before. Slowly, those reforms were repealed, unfunded, and eroded. That is why we need a Constitutional Amendment—to make sure that all the work that advocates and legislators put into fundamental reform does not go to waste. An Amendment is the only way we can lock in these important reforms and ensure that the movement to guarantee everyone access to affordable coverage does not lose steam until that promise has been fulfilled for everyone in our Commonwealth.