Why We Need Single Payer Health Care Reform

Please join us for a talk by Dr. Patricia Downs Berger, Co-Chair of Mass-Care, on “Why We Need Single Payer Health Care Reform” at the Walpole Public Library on Tuesday, March 4th at 7:30 pm. In 2006, the Massachusetts legislature passed the Massachusetts Healthcare Reform Law in an effort to provide health coverage by mandating the purchase of insurance with subsidies. The Massachusetts plan has served as the model for health care proposals of many presidential candidates. This talk is especially relevant given the importance of this issue in the upcoming presidential election.

In the talk, Dr. Berger will relate her own experience as a practicing physician to critique the Massachusetts Healthcare Reform Law and show why a single payer health system is needed. She will show how the medical-industrial complex is destroying our health system and why we need true health reform rather than incremental reforms. Dr. Berger will define the basic principles of health insurance, comparing the singer payer system versus a market based system. She will describe the major provisions of the Massachusetts Healthcare Reform Law, and discuss the challenges of cost, complexity, sustainability, and affordability. Dr. Berger will conclude by defining how single payer systems work, showing how they are funded, how they provide quality health services, and how they have been successfully implemented in many countries.

Dr. Berger is the Co-Chair of Mass-Care, an umbrella organization with more than 100 member organizations. Their 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.” Dr. Berger has practiced medicine in a variety of settings in Massachusetts. Having seen the inequities in the health care system first hand, she is committed to working for single payer health care reform. She is passionate in her belief “that access to comprehensive, equitable, high quality health care is a human right and is the foundation for a healthy and compassionate society” and that “a single payer health care system is the best way to achieve affordable, patient centered medical care supported by the broad community.”