Press Release: 10/21/2025
Solving the Health Care Crisis
For Immediate Release
Contact: Alison Leary, 617-821-5619
SOLVING THE HEALTH CARE CRISIS: A SINGLE PAYER MODEL FOR MASSACHUSETTS
AT THE WALTHAM PUBLIC LIBRARY, 735 MAIN STREET, WALTHAM MA
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 6:30PM
This event is sponsored by Mass-Care: the Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, a coalition of over 100 organizations advocating for a universal, single-payer health care system in Massachusetts. Mass-Care works to pass An Act Establishing Medicare for all in Massachusetts (H.1405/S.860), which would establish a publicly financed system with health care free of out-of-pocket costs at the point of care.
Health care costs continue to balloon, far exceeding growth in wages, income, and inflation, and placing an unsustainable burden on residents, employers, and cities, towns, and the Commonwealth.
Massachusetts health care costs monitored by the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) surged 8.6% in 2023, reaching over $78.1 billion, far exceeding the 3.6% annual benchmark goal set by the state. These costs have outstripped the benchmark for the last five years in a row. (Note that there are $48.7 billion in additional costs, as monitored by Mass-Care and managed by the proposed Massachusetts Health Care Trust. See https://masscare.org/economic-analysis/.)
The average annual premium for employer-sponsored coverage for families in Massachusetts is $28,151. More than 40% of Massachusetts residents struggle to pay for health care while access to care declines. More than half of Massachusetts hospitals are operating in the red.
Come hear about the options for a more sustainable, effective, compassionate, and equitable system. We already spend more than enough to get the job done.
Our speakers include:
Don Berwick MD, former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the Obama Administration. Dr. Berwick has studied the management of health care systems, with a goal to improve quality, safety, and costs. He received the Alfred I. DuPont Award for excellence in children’s health care in 2001 and the American Hospital Association Award of Honor in 2002.
Heather Clark, a graduate of Smith College and a founding member of South Shore Medicare for All. An effective lobbyist and organizer, she successfully passed a resolution in Scituate in support of Medicare for All.
Katie Murphy, President of Massachusetts Nurses Association, representing over 26,000 nurses and health care professionals across the Commonwealth. Critical Care Nurse at Brigham and Women's Hospital for over thirty years.
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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, and equitable health care, publicly financed and free of out-of-pocket cost at point-of-care, with free choice of practitioners, 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