Medicare for All
Full title: An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts (H.1405 / S.860)
Lead sponsors: Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa & Rep. Margaret Scarsdale; Sen. Jamie Eldridge
Committee: Joint Committee on Health Care Financing
The Issue
One’s access to health care should not be contingent on having a job or being independently wealthy. Healthcare is a human right, not a perk for the affluent. Due to the 2006 health care reform law, and the support from the Affordable Care Act, 97% of MA residents have some form of insurance. However, this seemingly remarkable outcome arises from a patchwork kludge of private/employer-provided, individual market, and government (Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc.) plans that vary widely in quality.
Accordingly, Massachusetts residents often face high co-pays, and deductibles, as well as high premiums, due largely to the cost of the administrative overhead required to manage reimbursements. These high costs cause many to forgo medical treatment or face mounting debt. Massachusetts residents already spend over $78.1 billion overall (> $11,000 per person) per year on health care—a rate significantly higher than that faced by residents of other states.
The Solution
The Medicare for All bill seeks to eliminate spending on private insurance and transfer these expenditures to a high-quality, single payer, government-administered health insurance program. Such a program would dramatically reduce administrative costs, rein in costs through economies of scale, and provide comprehensive coverage for all citizens regardless of their employment status, or preexisting conditions without deductibles or copays
Highlights
- Extends health care coverage to all residents regardless of financial or employment status, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, previous health problems, or geographic location.
- Provides reimbursement for all medically appropriate health care services offered by the eligible practitioner or facility of each resident’s choice and funds capital investments for adequate health care facilities and resources statewide.
- Includes coverage for mental health, dental, and vision treatments, as well as prescription medications.
- Achieves cost savings by reducing the complex array of multiple insurance systems and replacing this with a single, streamlined system.
- Sets reimbursement rates statewide, thereby eliminating unreasonable variations in costs set by providers.
- Measures success through increases in positive health outcomes (rather than patient turnover), and clear reductions in disease and disability.
- Receives funding from existing funding sources (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid) and a fairly apportioned, dedicated health care tax on employers, workers, and residents that replaces spending on insurance premiums and out-of-pocket spending for services covered.
- Bars for-profit hospitals.
Contact Your Legislators
Find your legislators’ contact information here.
I urge you to support H.1405/S.860: An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts. It’s clear that our health care system is broken: with high premiums, high rates of medical bankruptcy, and rates of underinsurance and inferior outcomes.
[Add a personal story if you have one.]
The solution is clear: a single-payer system that provides everyone with high-quality health insurance. Such a Medicare for All system is both more efficient, with its elimination of administrative burdens, and more equitable, with its elimination of cost as a barrier to care. Massachusetts led the way 15 years ago with our health care reform law, and it’s time for us to do so again.
- Health care is a right not a privilege. Why should coverage be contingent on having a job, or being independently wealthy? #MedicareForAll
- Costs for the same procedure vary widely across MA. But there is little or no evidence that places charging more have better outcomes. #MedicareForAll
- Massachusetts has near universal insurance, but many private plans have prohibitively high copays and deductibles, as well as overly expensive premiums. We need #MedicareForAll.
- Our health care system’s patchwork of private and public insurers results in excessive administrative overhead costs, driving up health care costs unnecessarily. #MedicareForAll is more efficient *and* more equitable.
- Near-universal health insurance isn’t the same as universal health *care*. We have yet to deliver on the promise of the latter — and we won’t be able to do until we pass #MedicareForAll.
- MA’s health care reform law has still left us with problems of underinsurance and medical bankruptcy. We need to provide health care as a right. #MedicareforAll
- We need a health care system that prioritizes better health outcomes not higher profits. #MedicareForAll
- COVID has shown the dangers of tying health insurance to employment. Health insurance and health care should be treated as a public good. #MedicareForAll
- No one should go bankrupt from medical bills or delay treatment due to cost. We need #MedicareForAll.
Write a Letter to the Editor
Adapt the template below! Or email us at issues@progressivemass.com for help!
Massachusetts has the right to be proud of being the state with the highest percentage of people with health insurance , but we also have some of the most expensive health care costs in the country.
[Include a personal story if you have one.]
The solution is clear: a single-payer system that provides everyone with high-quality health insurance. And there is legislation in the State House to do just that: H.1405 / S.860, filed by Reps. Lindsay Sabadosa and Margaret Scarsdale and Sen. Jamie Eldridge. Such a Medicare for All system is both more efficient, with its elimination of administrative burdens, and more equitable, with its elimination of cost as a barrier to care. Most other advanced industrial countries have understood this—the US has just been a laggard.
Massachusetts led the way two decades ago with our health care reform law. Since then, we’ve seen both its successes and its limits—with the continuation of underinsurance, medical bankruptcy, and inequities in access. It’s time to lead again, but now with the goal of fully delivering on the promise of universal health care.
Read More
- Center for Health Information and Analysis. Performance of the Massachusetts Health Care System. CHIA, 2025. https://www.chiamass.gov/assets/2025-annual-report/2025-Annual-Report.pdf.
- Dickman, Samuel, David Himmelstein, and Steffie Woolhandler. “Inequality and the Health-Care System in the USA.” Lancet 389, no. 100 (April 2017): 1431-1441, http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)30398-7/fulltext.
- Finkelstein, Amy, Nathaniel Hendren, and Mark Shepard. “Subsidizing Health Insurance for Low-Income Adults: Evidence from Massachusetts and Implications for Future Health Reforms.” Harvard Kennedy School Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. January 2018. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20171455f.
- Long, Sharon et al. “Massachusetts Health Reform At Ten Years: Great Progress, But Coverage Gaps Remain.” Health Affairs. 35, no. 9 (2016), https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.0354.
Information on single payer efforts in other states can be found here.
Talking Points & Sample Tweets