What ballot are these questions on?

Everything I've seen, including on the MA state site, only has 4 questions.

https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/ele22/information-for-voters-22/offices.htm

Feel like I'm missing something.

I think that’s out in the Berkshires section of Boston.

Not sure where the ballot above came from, but those additional questions are on the ballot here in Medford.

I think it’s only for middlesex voters. We have the power to command our district representatives to do our direct will. Dance representative minions, dance!

The non-binding questions varies from district to district. The group Act on Mass tried to get #6 on as many ballots as possible to show the hidebound and opaque legislature that their constituents want to know how their own legislators voted in committee. It is a no-brainer.

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Edit: The districts with questions 5 and 6 are listed here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cPYfcztFbcXMANnJ9gUlkesu58lfEKdzwGKxUxOf3fk/edit#gid=0
From https://actonmass.org/the-campaign/

5 is highly dependent on how it would be funded, and a more realistic state level improvement would be to build on our existing healthcare policies and maybe to expand MassHealth as a public option.

6 is a no brainer, but our legislature won't actually make it happen. I'd be interested to see their reaction if this ever made it as a statewide ballot initiative.

They’re on the ballot in Boston too

The problem is that the other 49 states don't have #5. Becoming a magnet for the sickest Americans could bankrupt Mass. It was lucky Obamacare happened nationally so soon after Romneycare.

I don't really care how it's funded and I'm sure however it is, it is preferable to and more fair and efficient than any system that has enough waste to fund an entire parasitic insurance industry.

That’s easily solved by making a requirement of “proof of at least one year of state residency” or something similar.

It isn't that simple. Insurance could vanish from the state. What would people do for that year?

It's easy to imagine problems, what about people who live in RI, CT, NH and work in MA, would their employers drop insurance? An insurance company is the largest employer in the state, would they leave like how Colt left Hartford...

It doesn't matter if you care or not because it doesn't exist without funding

The could be solved by staying the way it is, where an employer has to offer private insurance. Money is money, someone will offer coverage. And people who live elsewhere but live here is an entirely different issue, keeping Mass jobs in Mass should be a focus. We don’t need “our money” to be spent in neighboring states.

MA workers who live out of state already still pay MA state taxes as well as any other job related contributions such as PFML. So would they force out of state workers to contribute and yet not have access?

I got it on mine in Norfolk

Who will manage this, who gets to tell people what is not covered, how will the medical industry react and charge people. Will costs go up exponentially as they already have with insurance?

Q 5 for sure but I did not get a Q 6. Darn.

Strange.. we don't have them in Stoneham, so it's not a Middlesex thing..

Single-payer does not have to mean "free for all residents".

And they already CAN come here to be part of Masshealth Standard, so .... where's the point, again? I seem to be having trouble finding one ...

Then you will really see housing prices skyrocket. There are a lot of people who need healthcare willing to do whatever it takes to get medical attention

This looks non-binding. The representative can do what they want…and will.

It's non-binding

I hate the current insurance system. I have lots of ailments that require constant treatments and surgeries. But under no circumstances would I ever want the govt to gain more control of this system.

Healthcare as is, is abysmal. The only to make it worse is to further involve the govt - either party

Brookline has more questions, not these about raising funds .

I agree with you on the desired outcome. The problem is we pay a bunch of taxes already to the federal government for Medicare and Medicaid, that money would need to get unbound from those programs and allowed to be spent by the state on building a universal in-state system. Otherwise we'll be spending a huge chunk of our federal taxes on programs we're not using.

With the way the state has run the MBTA in the ground, are we sure it's capable of enacting, funding, and operating health care? And who's going to decide what the limits are? Agreeing to publicly fund all the health care that everyone in the state wants could bankrupt the state. Moving to a public option as part of a long term plan to get to single payer seems more reasonable and prudent than trying to move straight to single payer now. I'm voting no on#5, but yes on the rest.

Give that this year the state had to literally refund taxes because we didn’t fund enough services and the rainy day fund is full… we should fund more stuff.

Why shouldn't we have a healthcare system like France and Germany, generally rated as the best in the world, and Israel, generally rated as tge most cost-effective?

Same in Quincy

Now imagine there is no MBTA and it's just private companies offering transportation. That's how the current healthcare runs.

I left them blank

Yeah and they charge $20 for a subway ride. They can bring that down to $8.50 but only if you inform them ahead of time and they determine you really need to take the T.

It literally says at the top “this question is not binding”

Ed. Typo

A one year record surplus isn't a sustainable funding source for single payer healthcare

Whatever it is, the Herald-and-Howie crowd is angry about it and against it

What would your idea be to make it better then? I'm open to hearing about other ideas.

I don’t know if the proposed non-biding question is the -right- use of the funds, but we’re run a surplus and re-built the rainy day over the last few years. Surely there are places that could use the funds. (Not meaning to attack, I just have a reflex response to “we can’t pay for it” when we had a tax refund)

The current wait time at DDS (disability services) to have your application reviewed by someone with the appropriate medical degree is over a year. Your medical releases will expire before the person who is tasked with it gets around to calling providers. Perhaps we could hire more reviewers?

Similarly, the DDS reimbursement rate for PCA’s (personal care assistants) to help disabled people with everyday life tasks is currently less than $20/hr. Even if you’re approved for a specified number of hours of care, the reimbursement rate is too low to get the care you need. A proposed budget amendment earlier in the year included raising the rate to $20, but it’s sponsor was convinced to remove it.

We could revise the chapter 70 formula to send more money back to schools (especially those with low income students, ELLs, and disabled students - places where we know the foundational level doesn’t match the actual cost to educate)

We could actually staff MBTA maintenance to the levels recommended in the FTA report (we’re currently at either 80%, or 60% if you don’t use mandatory overtime, of the number of workers needed to maintain the system)

I’m pretty sure every department that has a secretary (Education, Transportation, etc.) has unmet needs. Let’s fund some of those.

Eliminate PBMs. Mandatory cost listed at every medical facility. Allow insurance bidding across state lines. Allow import of generic drugs. Those are just a few that could get things trending in the right direction. I’m definitely not an expert on how the provider side works, I just know as a patient it’s awful.

Single payer at a state level could be difficult. Nationwide scale is necessary for success imo.

A lot of these aren't really comparable to implementing single payer healthcare at the state level since they're either one time costs that make sense to use our one time record surplus on or aren't at all comparable in terms of cost to single payer healthcare. Our one year surplus isn't useful when talking about a new, massive public health program that would need to be funded in perpetuity.

Knowing what other countries tax rates are, it is a bargain!!!

The districts with questions 5 and 6 are listed here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cPYfcztFbcXMANnJ9gUlkesu58lfEKdzwGKxUxOf3fk/edit#gid=0

From https://actonmass.org/the-campaign/

If I may, I have used Masshealth on more than one occasion in the past. It runs beautifully, no headaches, no paperwork, and everything is covered without fuss.

Whenever I have the option for other insurance, which becomes mandatory outside of shopping on the connecter (not the same as MH), I wish I wasn't being offered the alternative.

If we can model it after that, fund it properly and offer to all or most, this is a Heck Yes! even more than already. Curious the reasoning of the naysayers. Has your experience with Mass Healthcare been that different, and negatively so? Honest question: I'm one relatively healthy human, outside of two fairly common health concerns.

The pictured one is from Somerville

Weird! I voted early at Somerville City Hall yesterday, and my bf voted by mail, but neither of us had questions 5 and 6.

Sounded like someone else in the thread mentioned that these might appear randomly in ballets.

Is it possible that you’re in different congressional districts despite both being in Somerville?