Although we often think of the history of voting rights in the US as one of ever-forward motion, Massachusetts stands as an outlier. In the late 1990s, after incarcerated individuals in MCI-Norfolk started organizing for better conditions, Republican Governor Bill Cellucci and the MA Legislature responded with retaliation: a multi-step process of disenfranchisement. In 2000, Massachusetts voters approved a constitutional amendment to prohibit people incarcerated for felonies in state prison from voting in state elections; the subsequent year, Cellucci signed a law to extend this prohibition to federal and municipal elections. Our commonwealth did something rare in recent history: it took away the right to vote from a category of people who were formerly enfranchised.
But the tide is turning. On Wednesday, the Joint Committee on Election Laws took the significant step of giving a favorable report to S.8/H.26, constitutional amendments filed by Sen. Liz Miranda and Adam Gomez and Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven that would ensure that incarceration never leads to a loss of voting rights.
Celebrate graduates and ensure that debt-free public higher ed is an option for future generations!
The Massachusetts State House will soon be considering the Cherish Act (S.816 / H.1260) and Debt-Free Bill (S.823 / H.1265). Collectively, these bills call for debt-free public higher education, increased student supports, better wages and working conditions, and green/healthy buildings.
Join the Higher Ed for All coalition on the State House steps and share your testimony alongside graduates, students, faculty, librarians, staff, and community from across the commonwealth!
It’s finally Election Day!!! This year’s ballot questions have the possibility to greatly impact the safety and equity of life in Massachusetts.
Whether that impact will be positive or negative is up to your YES votes.
Below is an explanation of why we have endorsed YES on Questions 1, 2, and 4 (and for those select districts, 5 and 6). Please share these resources with your family, friends and neighbors and help us promote progressive policy.
YES ON 1: Fair Share Amendment
The Fair Share Amendment – Question 1 on the November ballot – will allow Massachusetts to improve our transportation and public education systems by making the very rich pay their fair share. Question 1 would create a 4 percent tax on the portion of a person’s annual income above $1 million and constitutionally dedicate the funds to be spent on transportation and public education. Only people who earn more than $1 million annually will be impacted; 99% of us won’t pay a penny more. And we’ll all benefit from better schools, roads, bridges, and public transportation.
We know that there are lots of questions about how the tax will be implemented and spent. The Fair Share FAQ website has factual, easy to understand answers, including in the extremely rare instances where it will apply to the sale of houses and businesses.
YES on 2: Better Dental Care
In Massachusetts, we have a law that requires medical insurance plans to spend at least 88% of all premiums on health care or efforts to improve the quality of health care delivery. However, no such requirement exists for dental insurance. If Question 2 passes, a minimum of 83% of your premium would have to be spent on care, rather than profit, and strengthen financial transparency of dental insurance companies.
To learn how a Yes vote on Question 2 will require more patient dollars to be spent on patient care check out the Yes on 2 website FAQ.
YES on 4: Safer Roads
A YES on 4 would uphold the Work & Family Mobility Act, a bill passed by 75% of the MA Legislature that would allow qualified drivers – regardless of immigration status – to pass a road test, buy insurance, obtain a license and legally drive in Massachusetts. By voting YES ON 4, Massachusetts voters will ensure that immigrants without status can legally make essential trips, like dropping off kids at school and getting to work, while promoting road safety for all of us.
Learn more about the positive impact similar legislation has made in other states and why it should stay law by visiting the Safer Roads MA FAQ site.
Wait, Is There a Q5 or a Q6, too?
In select state representative districts, there are non-binding advisory questions as well, and if you see them on your ballot, we recommend voting YES on these questions also:
YES on 5, which would instruct the district’s state representative to support legislation to create a single payer health care system in Massachusetts so that we finally treat health care as a right, not a privilege.
YES on 6, which would instruct the district’s state representative to support a change to the MA House’s rules enabling all legislative committees’ votes to be public, posted online as they are in most other states.
Both are clear and simple; and lots of YES votes send a strong message to your state representative.
If you haven’t mailed in your ballot yet then unfortunately it is not guaranteed that it will be counted in time. We highly encourage you to vote in person instead.
If you already mailed your ballot, use the track my ballot site to make sure it was accepted. If it was rejected (perhaps missing a signature), you can vote in person today.
If you have any questions about the ballot questions or making your vote count, please feel free to respond to this email- we are here to help!
Chairwoman Friedman, Chairman Lawn, and members of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing:
Thank you for holding this hearing today. My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the chair of the Issues Committee of Progressive Massachusetts. Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide grassroots advocacy organization devoted to shared prosperity, racial and social justice, good government and strong democracy, and environmental protection and sustainable infrastructure.
Progressive Massachusetts urges afavorable report for S.766/H.1267: An Act establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts has a storied role in the history of the fight for universal health care in the US. Our former senator Ted Kennedy was a longtime champion of single payer, and our 2006 health care reform law was a model for the Affordable Care Act nationally.
Although our health care reform law, boosted by the ACA, has helped Massachusetts achieve near-full universality in health insurance coverage, we still see underinsurance, high premiums, high rates of medical debt, and significant disparities—all inevitable outcomes of a reliance on private sector provision. Universal coverage alone doesn’t guarantee affordability, quality, or equity without additional steps.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made the flaws of our current system clear. As we recognize the central public health message that our health is intertwined, we must build that recognition into health care delivery and ensure everyone can access the best-quality care possible. When anyone is too afraid of medical bills or debt to seek the care they need, we are all worse off.
The US remains the only advanced industrial country that has not recognized this as a fundamental right, but Massachusetts can lead the way. A single payer system would save the Commonwealth money through increased efficiency; take the burden of rising health care costs off small businesses, municipalities, and families; eliminate medical debt and medical bankruptcy; and finally guarantee access to quality, affordable health care as a right for all residents of the Commonwealth.
We often hear rhetoric around “choice” in our health care system. And indeed, there are plenty of places where “choice” is important, where it provides a valuable outlet for self-expression. Health insurance is not that. “Choice” in health insurance only means “you get as much as you can afford, and no more.”
The way we design our health care system has a significant impact on the lives of all residents of the Commonwealth, and putting equity and justice at the center of such a design is vital to ensuring that every person is able to live up to their full potential.
The reason why we support progressive policies is the tangible, positive impact that they will have in bettering the lives of people across the Commonwealth.
When health insurance costs too much and provides too little, and when families struggle to make ends meet in order to afford child care, people end up with undue stress, growing debt, and foreclosed opportunities.
The good thing? We can change that.
There will be upcoming hearings in the MA Legislature on Medicare for All and universal child care / early education, and they will be an opportunity to share why how such policies would have a tangible, positive impact on you and the people you care about.
Next Tuesday: Medicare for All Hearing
Next Tuesday (10/26) at 11 am, the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing will be hearing testimony on Medicare for All (S.766/H.1267).
These bills would make health care at last a truly enjoyed human right with a non-profit health care system that puts patients before profits, is comprehensive, covers every one, and is affordable.
If you would like to speak at the hearing, you must sign up by 4 pm today!
If you aren’t able to attend but still want to share why Medicare for All is so important to you, don’t fret!
You can send written testimony as well to Joint Committee co-chairs John.Lawn@mahouse.gov and Cindy.Friedman@masenate.gov and the Committee Director at timothy.oneill@mahouse.gov. Please copy legislation@masscare.org. Mass-Care has a helpful guide on writing testimony here.
The Common Start coalition is collecting testimony for their bill’s hearing next month. The Common Start bill would establish a system of affordable, high-quality early education and child care for all Massachusetts families, over a 5-year timeline. This system would cover early education and care for children from birth through age 5, as well as after- and out-of-school time for children ages 5-12, and for children with special needs through age 15.
The hearing is on November 23, but the coalition is asking for testimony by Thursday, October 28 to put together a curated “recipe book” (Common Start, A Recipe for Affordable, Accessible, High-Quality Education and Care).
Check out the coalition’s guide to writing testimony here, and send testimony (or stories you’d like to include) to james@field-first.com.
Last week — on Christmas Eve to be exact — Governor Charlie Baker vetoed a bill from the Legislature to expand equitable access to abortion in Massachusetts.
Fortunately, the House and Senate had veto-proof majorities in support of the bill to override Baker this week.
The bill, which contains many of the provisions of the ROE Act, was a milestone in advancing reproductive freedom in the commonwealth. Patients seeking an abortion later in pregnancy will no longer be forced to leave the state, far from their families and support systems, in order to access care, and 16 and 17 year olds will no longer be forced to obtain a parent’s permission or endure a shame-inducing court process to receive abortion care. It’s simple: abortion is health care, and health care is a human right (two things our governor doesn’t understand).
The following testimony was delivered to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing on Tuesday, June 11, 2019in support of H.1194/S.683
In December 2015, I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer that had spread to my lymph nodes. Before I even had a treatment plan, and was in still shock at hearing my diagnosis, I met with the Financial Office to find out what my coinsurance and cap was for my out-of-pocket payments. This insurance-centric reality followed every step of my treatment plan.
Cancer taught me to live every day and be grateful but it taught me other things as well. Catastrophically ill patients and those with chronic illnesses often lose their life savings to the current medical system. The wicked good Cadillac health insurance I had from my ex-husband did not cover the whole thing. I was expected to pay 10% as coinsurance. Some plans call for the patient to pay 30% of the costs of their treatment. For 2019 the capped amount is $7,900 for an individual and $15,800 for a family. This amount is before copays, medications, and many other needed procedures that patients carry the bill for in their treatment. I found out very quickly that people go bankrupt because they get sick. Many lose their house after 4 or 5 years as they can never make up for lost income and what they had to pay into the system.
One of the most baffling parts of the system was extreme administrative redundancies. Each procedure had to be checked and rechecked to make sure it was covered. Mass General, Emerson Hospital, My Primary Care office, testing labs and my pharmacist each contacted my insurance company to make sure I was covered. And while this happening, I kept being told that breast cancer patients statistically have a better outcome if they have a positive attitude. There were times I told them what to do with their positive attitude.
You see, my positive attitude was hampered by the stress of not knowing what’s going to be paid what isn’t going to be paid. This is because our multi-payer for-profit system puts money and profit over patient outcome. Many patients are told they need an additional medicine, tests, or procedures. Each time that happens, you have to go back into the complicated system and get your approvals all over again. I was denied treatment. I was denied medications. I was denied tests. Each time my team appealed. I barely had the strength to get up in the morning between my rounds of treatment. I was forced to spend those hours hyper-vigilant about what was getting paid for and what wasn’t. It’s what I call Insurance Insecurity, and it is extremely traumatic.
I believe we can fix this! We can start right here in Massachusetts.
(1) We need a system that focuses on the patient first. The medical professionals and hospitals are stuck on this multi-payer treadmill with their patients. As our current system is for-profit, we do it backwards putting Insurance companies first, and patients last often footing the bill with their employers.
(2) All insurance claims must have the same forms and approvals so that a doctor’s office is not forced to have multiple administrators dealing with a myriad of health care companies. One form, one approval, one insurance.
(3) Prescription costs must be lowered and drugs that our Doctors prescribed need to be approved without retroactive refusals. Medicare for all would take care of that. Prescription costs will go down due to our ability to negotiate with drug companies en masse.
One of the first things I did when my immune system recovered was to volunteer at Open Table food pantry on Main Street in Maynard. Since then, I have become a manager and speak to many of our guests. I quickly realized that medical costs were one of the main factors in why people have food insecurity in Massachusetts.
Costs keep going up, the system keeps getting more complicated, and patients are left breathless with less beneficial results than in other countries. I’m determined to speak for those in treatment right now. I know there are people lost and lonely who feel they have been left behind by our healthcare system. I often say Cancer changed my life for the better. I am extremely grateful that my diagnosis turned me from a Survivor to fighter, standing up for the next patient.
Increments won’t do it! We need a bold Leap Forward. Let’s start the health care revolution right here in Massachusetts, the home of the American Revolution.
“Single-payer debate breaks out at public hearing” — Katie Lannan, State House News Service (6/11/2019)
Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Massachusetts, who testified for the Eldridge/Sabadosa bills and against Hogan’s, said a state study isn’t needed to know where the insurance industry stands on single-payer.
The following testimony was delivered to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing on Tuesday, June 11, 2019.
Chairwoman Friedman, Chairwoman Benson, and members of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing:
Thank you for holding this hearing today. My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the chair of the Issues Committee of Progressive Massachusetts. Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide grassroots advocacy organization devoted to shared prosperity, racial and social justice, good government and strong democracy, and environmental protection and sustainable infrastructure.
Medicare for All is a quintessential part of shared prosperity, and we are proud to support S.683 / H.1194: An Act establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts has a storied role in the history of the fight for universal health care in the US. Our former senator Ted Kennedy was a longtime champion of single payer, and our 2006 health care reform law was a model for the Affordable Care Act nationally.
Although our health care reform law, boosted by the ACA, has helped Massachusetts achieve near-full universality in health insurance coverage, we still see underinsurance, high premiums, high rates of medical debt, and significant disparities—all inevitable outcomes of a reliance on private sector provision. Universal coverage alone doesn’t guarantee affordability, quality, or equity without additional steps.
These problems will continue to exist as long as we treat health care as a commodity instead of a right. The US remains the only advanced industrial country that has not recognized this as a fundamental right, but Massachusetts can lead the way.
A single payer system would save the Commonwealth money through increased efficiency; take the burden of rising health care costs off small businesses, municipalities, and families; eliminate medical debt and medical bankruptcy; and finally guarantee access to quality, affordable health care as a right for all residents of the Commonwealth.
Progressive Massachusetts also opposes H.1163: An Act establishing a special commission to study the implementation of single payer health care in the Commonwealth.
Although commissions can be a valuable tool in guiding policy decisions, the commission outlined in this bill would stack the deck against single payer by design. Past bills in the House, as well as S.674 (An Act to ensure effective health care cost control) in the Senate, would require the Center for Health Information and Analysis and the Health Policy Commission to do the necessary assessment work. The commission in H.1163 would still give space to CHIA and the HPC, but it would also include spots for the insurance lobby. That’s right: the bill would put a representative of Blue Cross Blue Shield and a representative of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans in charge of determining whether or not Massachusetts should move toward a single payer system. The Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association would get a spot, too.
The hospital and insurance industries, of course, have spent large sums against Medicare for All nationally, and they are its biggest opponents here at home. We don’t need to fund a commission to know what the insurance industry and the hospital industry think about Medicare for All. You can google that.
Similarly concerning, H.1163 designates a spot for a “representative of employers,” but no representative for workers. And it includes no space for patients’ rights advocates.
The way we design our health care system has a significant impact on the lives of all residents of the Commonwealth, and putting equity and justice at the center of such a design is vital to ensuring that every person is able to live up to their full potential.
In January of 2017, Progressive Massachusetts unveiled our legislative agenda for the 190th legislative session — 17 items for 2017 (and 2018). As we near the end of the year — and the start of the next legislative session, it’s the perfect time to take stock of how the various bills fared.
Clear Victories
Reproductive Rights
The ACCESS bill, which updates MA’s contraceptive coverage equity law to require insurance carriers to provide all contraceptive methods without a copay, passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature and was signed by the Governor.
Democracy
Massachusetts became the 13th state to adopt Automatic Voter Registration. In this reform pioneered by Oregon in 2015, eligible voters who interface with select government agencies (here, the RMV or MassHealth) are automatically registered to vote unless they decline. With more than 700,000 eligible citizens in MA unregistered, AVR will increase the accuracy, security, and comprehensiveness of voter rolls.
The bill also enrolls Massachusetts in Electronic Registration Information Center, a coalition of states founded by the Pew Research Center that enable states to synchronize their voter rolls. ERIC has increased the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the voter rolls in participating states.
[Note: The original bill included smaller social services government agencies as well. The final bill allows for their later inclusion but focuses on the two largest sources of possible new registrants.]
Steps Forward
Criminal Justice Reform
The comprehensive criminal justice reform bill passed by the Legislature in April incorporated some elements from our priority bills (Read our write-up here):
Eliminating most mandatory minimums for retail drug selling and drug paraphernalia and limiting mandatory minimums in school zones to cases involving guns or minors. [Note: PM and advocates had sought the elimination of all mandatory minimums. The bill, however, left in place mandatory minimums for Class A drugs (like heroin), expanded this definition to include opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil, and created a new mandatory minimum for assaulting a police officer, an overused charge wielded as a threat against protesters.]
Raising the felony-larceny threshold from $250 to $1,200 [Note: PM and other advocates had sought $1,500.]
Reducing fines and fees [Note: PM and other advocates wanted probation and parole fees fully eliminated.]
Establishing a process for expunging records, especially for juveniles convicted of minor offenses
There is still work to be done–from raising the age of criminal majority to severely curtailing (or outright abolishing) solitary confinement. That said, the bill, despite its shortcomings, was a step in the right direction.
Fight for $15
At the start of the session, we supported legislation to raise the minimum wage from $11 to to $15 by 2021, raise the tipped minimum wage from $3.75 to $15.75 by 2025, and require the minimum wage to increase with inflation starting in 2022.
The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition’s ballot initiative was slightly more modest in its ambition, extending the full phase-in date one year (due to a later start) and raising the minimum wage for tipped employees to only $9 (60% of the minimum wage) by 2022.
What passed in the ultimate “Grand Bargain,” an effort of the Legislature and the Governor to avoid three ballot initiatives ($15 minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, sales tax reduction) was more modest still. It raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2023, raised the tipped minimum wage to only $6.75, and dropped indexing. Unfortunately, the Legislature included a further concession to the business lobby, agreeing to phase-out time-and-a-half on Sundays and holidays. Although the bill is a net win for workers in Massachusetts, it’s possible that, due to the phase-out of time-and-a-half, some workers will be left worse off.
Paid Family and Medical Leave
The version of paid family and medical leave passed in the aforementioned “Grand Bargain” was less robust than the original legislation and the ballot initiative text, but still more robust than the programs that exist in other states.
Senate Victory, House Opposition
Several of our priority bills succeeded, or made partial progress, in the Senate, only to flounder in the House amidst fierce opposition from the conservative House leadership.
Fully Funding Our Schools
Massachusetts’s 25-year-old education funding formula is short-changing our schools $1-2 billion per year due to outdated assumptions about the costs of health care, special education, ELL (English Language Learners) education, and closing racial and economic achievement gaps.
The 2015 Foundation Budget Review Commission recommended a path forward for fixing it. The Senate unanimously adopted a bill to implement them. The House, however, insisted on leaving English Language Learners, Black and Brown students, and poor students (not mutually exclusive categories) behind.
Protecting Our Immigrant Friends and Neighbors
Despite Massachusetts’s liberal reputation, our Legislature has been historically hostile to strengthening protections for our immigrant community.
The Senate included four provisions from the Safe Communities Act, a bill that our members fought strongly for, in its FY 2019 budget: (1) a prohibition on police inquiries about immigration status, a prohibition on certain collaboration agreements between local law enforcement and ICE, (3) a guarantee of basic due process protections, and (4) a prohibition on participation in a Muslim registry. The amendment was a win-win for both rights and safety, but House Leadership opposed its inclusion in the final budget.
Bold Action on Climate Change
Many elements from our priority environmental legislation were incorporated in the Senate’s impressive omnibus bill:
Building on the Global Warming Solutions Act by setting intermediate emissions targets for 2030 and 2040
Establishing a 3% annual increase in the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to accelerate our commitment to renewable energy
Prohibiting a “pipeline tax” on energy consumers
Instructing the governor’s office to develop carbon pricing for the transportation sector by the end of 2020, for commercial buildings and industrial processes by 2021, and for residential buildings by the end of 2022 (not as strong as a revenue-positive carbon pricing scheme, but still in the right direction)
However, the House proved a roadblock yet again. The ultimate compromise energy legislation included only a 2% increase from 2020 to 2030, after which it would fall back to the current 1%. This would take us to only 56% renewable energy by 2050 instead of 100%.
Loss…But a Battle Not Over
Revenue & Reinvestment
Progressive Mass members played a major role in the signature collection for the Fair Share amendment (or “millionaires tax”), which would have created a 4% surtax on income above $1 million (inflation-adjusted) to fund education and transportation investment.
As a citizen-originated ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment, the Fair Share amendment had to receive the support of at least 25% of the Legislature in two constitutional conventions. It secured well more than double this amount, but the Supreme Judicial Court struck it from the ballot this June.
Inaction
Medicare for All
Although the Senate took modest steps in the direction of single payer, passing legislation to create a public option (a MassHealth buy-in) and require a study of whether a single payer system would save money relative to the current system, the House took no such action.
Housing Production
Although the Senate passed a comprehensive zoning reform bill to increase housing production in the suburbs last session, no such action was taken in either house this session.
Debt/tuition-free Higher Education
The cost of higher education has grown a lot in Massachusetts, and the Legislature continues to punt.
In Conclusion: We won some, we lost some, and we’ll keep on fighting.
Election Day is just four weeks away. That’s right: 28 days.
Ballot Question Endorsements: YES-YES-YES
Massachusetts voters will see three questions on the ballot when they go to vote in four weeks. Progressive Massachusetts is recommending that you vote YES-YES-YES.
Progressive Massachusetts has been a part of the Freedom for All Massachusetts coalition since the legislative push the session before last, but before taking a position on Questions 1 and 2, we polled our members–the ultimate decision-makers in our organization. Our members overwhelmingly voted to say Yes on 1 and Yes on 2 as well.
Here’s why:
Why Yes on 1: In Massachusetts, there is no law and no limit governing the number of patients that can be assigned to a nurse at one time (aside from the Intensive Care Unit). Overworked nurses and understaffed hospitals lead to more complications, readmissions, and errors. Nurses aren’t able to thrive at their work, and patients aren’t able to get the care they deserve. Everyone deserves high-quality working conditions, and everyone deserves the best health care our state can offer.
Why Yes on 2: On the local, state, and federal level, we see time and time again how the outsize role of money in politics distorts democracy. A Yes on Question 2 would send a powerful statement to elected officials and to other states that Massachusetts voters want to see real action on campaign finance reform.
Why Yes on 3: Because everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Because every young person deserves a chance to succeed in school and prepare for their future — including young people who are transgender. Because we are better than fear, bigotry, and transphobia. To name a few.
Some More Endorsements: Senator Elizabeth Warren & AG Maura Healey
Our members overwhelmingly voted to endorse Elizabeth Warren and Maura Healey for re-election.
Why Elizabeth Warren? Let’s turn it over to our members?
“Elizabeth Warren has been a champion in Washington for all in a very dark and scary time in U.S politics. Her voice, her actions and her persistence are needed now more than ever.”
“MA voters should know that Senator Warren has our back.”
“Senator Warren is a leader for government of the people, by the people and for the people. She stands up to wealthy corporations (who are not people) and the oligarchs who are continuing to strangle democracy in the United States.”
And why Maura Healey?
“Absolutely the people’s attorney… She is a great watchdog for the people and a great bull dog against President Trump and his policies.”
“Maura Healey has been in the forefront of the resistance to the Trump administrating since the first day.”
“Among the leaders in holding pharmaceutical manufacturers accountable for the opioid crisis.”
We agree!
One more DA Endorsement: John Bradley, Plymouth County
As countless stories from right here in Massachusetts and around the country have shown, a District Attorney has a lot of power. Too often, DAs have used that power in favor of mass incarceration and the attendant racial and economic disparities. From overcharging to lobbying against criminal justice reform, DAs have proven themselves to be an obstacle.
We’ve been working with the Justice for Massachusetts coalition to elect progressive DAs–and then hold them accountable. JFM endorsed John Bradley for Plymouth County DA, and our members voted to do so as well.
John is committed to:
Abolishing cash bail
Taking illegally possessed firearms off the streets
Shifting strategy for dealing with drug addiction to medical-based solutions rather than criminalization
Meeting regularly with community leaders and instituting accountability checks
Increasing data transparency from the DA’s office to the community
John’s experience as a career prosecutor for over 30 years in Plymouth and Worcester Counties, as well as in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, equips him to implement progressive change to restore ethics, compassion, and common sense to the important public safety work of the DA’s Office.
