WITH 51 SPONSORS, HEALTH CARE CAMPAIGN SAYS "TRICKERY" ONLY OBSTACLE

By Michael P. Norton
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JUNE 28, 2004….Sponsors of a constitutional amendment directing the Legislature to secure health insurance for every Massachusetts resident said Monday they have written commitments from enough lawmakers to advance their plan. Now all they have to do is make sure it receives a vote this year.

Lawmakers who have bypassed recent opportunities to vote on the grass roots policy proposal, as well as other constitutional amendments, will resume their Constitutional Convention on July 7, with Senate President Robert Travaglini (D-East Boston), the former sponsor of a health-care-for-all bill, presiding.

As a ballot petition backed by the signatures of 71,385 voters, the proposal needs only 50 votes during the convention, which is a combined meeting of the 160-member House and the 40-member Senate. Barbara Roop, Health Care for Massachusetts Campaign co-chair, says 51 lawmakers have signed on to the plan. She pointed out that budget negotiations that prevented a vote on the amendment in May are now complete. "We're very optimistic a vote will take place," she said. "We have no assurances. But it's a huge, huge issue clearly."

"With more than 50 cosponsors, only parliamentary trickery can block it from moving forward to next year's Constitutional Convention and then on to the ballot for voters to decide in 2006," the campaign said in a statement released Monday.

The amendment does not specify how, but says lawmakers and state officials must ensure every resident has insurance that is "comprehensive, affordable, equitably financed, and covers all medically necessary preventive, acute and chronic health care and mental care services," including prescription drugs.

Opponents of the measure say it sounds good, but is cost prohibitive, given double-digit inflation in the health care industry. House Speaker Thomas Finneran has publicly cautioned that the question's passage might bankrupt the state. Opponents are also fearful that passage of the amendment will leave it to the courts to dictate satisfactory health benefit packages.

"Everybody is sympathetic to the idea," the co-chairman of the Legislature's Health Care Committee, Sen. Richard Moore (D-Uxbridge), said at a hearing on the proposal in May. "Whether a Constitutional amendment is the solution is the question mark."

Campaign officials say the proposal will more accountably cover the presently shared costs of serving and treating 600,000 uninsured residents of Massachusetts. They also hope the question's advancement and passage will spur action on reforms that lower health care costs, especially administrative expenses.

The campaign today named Rep. Theodore Speliotis (D-Danvers) as the 50th lawmaker to endorse the plan, signaling enough votes to advance it. Speliotis said the "failure to include everybody" threatens advances state government has made to help seniors pay for prescription drugs and make sure children have health insurance. Said Speliotis: "The time has come for us to get serious andmake sure no one goes without health care. Period."

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