Press Release: 1/31/2025
Keep Pappas & Pocasset Open
For Immediate Release
Contact: Kimberley Connors, Executive Director, Mass-Care, 617-297-8011, director@masscare.org
The plan by Gov. Maura Healey to close two vital health care facilities is taking health care in Massachusetts in the wrong direction.
“We need more health care facilities, not fewer,” said Kimberley Connors, Executive Director of Mass-Care: the Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care.
Healey’s plan to close Pappas Children's Hospital in Canton and the Pocasset Mental Health Clinic in Pocasset has come under fire from the communities that will be affected.
Both facilities are run by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
“Eastern Massachusetts is still reeling from the closures caused by Steward Health Care’s mismanagement of hospitals and the lack of a full response by the Healey administration,” Connors said. “Our governor should not be joining in with Steward to close hospitals.”
Mass-Care urges people to go online and sign a petition that calls for keeping Pappas Hospital open. The petition is at https://www.change.org/p/reconsider-the-closure-of-pappas-rehabilitation-hospital-for-children.
Mass-Care is a coalition of organizations in Massachusetts that supports the creation of a single-payer health care insurance system. Mass-Care has introduced legislation to create such a system.
The bills, HD.1228 and SD.2341, An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts, would establish the Massachusetts Health Care Trust, which would be the single payer for health care costs of Massachusetts residents. This would replace the role of insurance companies and certain government programs. The trustees for the trust would be appointed by the Governor, Attorney General, and Governor’s Councillors from across the state.
There would be no deductibles, co-pays, or other out-of-pocket expenses under Medicare for All. All medically necessary treatments would be covered. People could go to any doctor of their choice.
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Mass-Care’s mission is to establish a single payer health care system in Massachusetts so that all residents of the Commonwealth will have access to comprehensive, quality, affordable, and equitable health care, publicly financed and free of out-of-pocket cost at point-of-care, because it is basic to life and human dignity. The Mass-Care Coalition is now over 100 organizations.
www.masscare.org / 617-297-8011 / info@masscare.org