New maps compiled by an advocacy group track state lawmakers’ support for “Medicare for all” health care legislation in Massachusetts.
Mass-Care, the Massachusetts campaign for single-payer health care, this week published interactive maps illustrating the districts where representatives and senators are co-sponsoring this session’s single-payer bills. In both branches, the maps indicate higher levels of support in western Massachusetts and the greater Boston area, including western suburbs, with gaps in central Massachusetts, the North Shore, and southeastern areas.
In announcing the maps, Mass-Care said single-payer supporters can use the maps to “determine where to focus organizing in 2022,” view which districts do or do not have support nearby, easily identify and contact legislators, and track the campaign’s progress.
The bills Mass-Care backs (S.766/H.1267) would eliminate co-pays, deductibles, and coinsurance and set up a state trust fund to pay for the health care of Massachusetts residents and non-residents who work here at least 20 hours a week. Filed by state Senator Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) and state representatives Denise Garlick (D-Needham) and Lindsay Sabadosa (D-Northampton), the legislation has 74 co-sponsors, including 16 members of the 40-seat Senate and 58 from the 160-seat House.
The bills propose funding the trust with new taxes, which supporters say would be in lieu of money currently spent on insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs — an employer payroll tax of 7.5 percent, with the first $20,000 of an establishment’s payroll exempt; an employee payroll tax of 2.5 percent after the first $20,000 in income, and a 10 percent tax on unearned income above $20,000.
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Photo by Molly Adams / Flickr 
