[Platform] letter to editor re GRP position on Massachusetts Health Care plan

[John Walsh]

Great job!
jw

On Mar 21, 2008, at 10:34 AM, Nat Fortune wrote:

> Here is a copy of the letter to the editor Jill and I just sent to
> the (Greenfield) Recorder about the collapsing Massachusetts Health
> Insurance Plan, which just announced 12% increases, plus increases in
> co-pays and deductibles
>
> Nat Fortune
>
>   [250 words]
>
> To the Editors:
>
> Given the recent brouhaha over Senator Barack Obama's unattributed
> use of a speech by Governor Patrick, we were surprised to hear the
> Green-Rainbow party's criticism of the Massachusetts Health Insurance
> Plan being lifted by the Governor himself!
>
> In our June 4th, 2006 op-ed in the Recorder, we wrote that the
> Massachusetts mandate to buy private health insurance was "like
> declaring an end to homelessness by requiring everyone to rent an
> apartment without heat and hot water." Two years later, Governor
> Patrick has come to the same conclusion, declaring that without cost
> controls, requiring everyone to buy health insurance makes no more
> sense than trying to "cure homelessness by ordering everybody to buy
> a house."
>
> We admit it. The Governor is a better wordsmith. But in his change of
> words, he also pointed out another truth: in two short years,  health
> insurance that used to cost about the same as an unfurnished
> apartment now costs as much as a predatory mortgage!
>
> We now ask the Governor to steal the rest of our proposal.  Adopt the
> only proven solution to our health-insurance problems:  the privately
> provided, publicly financed health-care system known as single payer.
> This system is already in place in countries from Germany to Japan.
> We deserve no less.
>
> One party now controls the Massachusetts House, Senate, and the
> Governorship. We are living in a Democratic nirvana. So why do we
> still not have single-payer health care? And by the way, why haven't
> we cured homelessness?
>
> Nat Fortune, Whately, and co-chair, Green-Rainbow Party
> Dr. Jill Stein, Lexington
>
>
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>

John V. Walsh, MD
Professor of Physiology
University of Massachusetts Medical School
508-856-3360 (Office)
508-868-1653 (Cell)
john.walsh at umassmed.edu