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Providing Leadership on Health Care
Massachusetts has long been a model of excellence
in patient care, medical research and innovation, teaching and
community service.
But twelve years of Republican rule has threatened the Commonwealth’s
position as a world leader in health care, and eroded the stability
of our entire health care system. Costs of needed medicines have
escalated, emergency rooms are overcrowded, community hospitals
are in danger of closing, and there is a troubling nursing shortage.
We face these problems in the context of a serious fiscal crisis.
In these difficult times, it is particularly troubling that the
current administration has failed to implement our existing healthcare
programs effectively.
We need a Governor who cares about protecting the healthcare security
of our people and will use the laws we have to provide people with
the healthcare services they need.
As Senate President, Tom Birmingham has led the
way on health care. He championed the nation’s strongest prescription drug program for
seniors. He led a Senate override of Governor Weld’s veto to make
Massachusetts the first state to provide every child with access
to affordable Health Insurance.
As Governor, Tom Birmingham will make sure that our prescription
drug program for seniors actually provides our seniors with the
affordable medicines they need and that we reduce costs by implementing
bulk purchasing laws he worked to enact. He will work to make sure
that our unemployed workers get access to affordable healthcare
through the Medical Security Plan, and he will make sure that we
use all the tools available to monitor and protect the viability
of our community hospitals.
Tom Birmingham knows that strong leadership is
needed to move Massachusetts towards providing access to quality
affordable health care for every
child, adult and family. This won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick.
But we can continue to progress a step at a time – as we have since
Tom became Senate President – to move towards providing healthcare
for all of our people.
As Governor, Tom Birmingham will provide leadership to protect
the healthcare security of our people. His priorities will be to:
- Protect and Promote Access to Affordable Prescription Drugs
- Protect and Promote Access to Affordable Health Care for Massachusetts
Children, Adults and Families
- Improve and Protect the Quality of Health Care in Massachusetts
- Tackle our Nursing Shortage and Other Workforce Challenges
With Innovative Solutions
Protect and Promote Access to Affordable Prescription Drugs
Tom Birmingham is proud of the prescription drug insurance program
for seniors and people with disabilities he worked to establish.
The Prescription Advantage Program is open to all seniors in Massachusetts
and is a national model. In the current fiscal climate, there will
be efforts to cut this program. But as Governor Tom will work vigorously
to protect our progress and will make sure that we actually get
seniors the help they need to pay for prescription drugs.
- Protecting Prescription Advantage and Improving Outreach
to Seniors. Tom will continue to protect and expand
access to the current program by directing needed state resources
to
fund the program and get more seniors enrolled. He will assure
that outreach is conducted in ways that work for seniors, including
consumer organizations, Councils on Aging, and community-based
organizations. Tom will also develop a far more active partnership
with health care providers – doctors, visiting nurse and home
health providers, city and town health officials, community health
centers, pharmacies and hospitals – to reach out to seniors as
part of the health care the are already receiving and enroll
them
in the program. Every time a senior meets with a medical professional
it is an enrollment opportunity.
- Securing Federal Funding for Prescription Advantage. Under
Tom Birmingham’s leadership, Senate budget provisions have
been enacted to mandate the current Republican Administration
to seek federal Medicaid reimbursement for the Prescription
Advantage
program. A waiver would allow the Commonwealth to obtain federal
reimbursement for the costs of the Prescription Advantage program
for the poorest seniors and disabled populations, reducing
state
pharmacy costs and saving the Commonwealth up to $50 million.
This funding can be used to strengthen the program.
- Maximizing the Commonwealth’s Purchasing
Power. Tom
Birmingham will fully implement bulk purchasing laws he worked
to enact, but that have been ignored by the Republican Administration.
Bulk purchasing of drugs by the many state agencies that
purchase
drugs will save state money and drive down costs. Tom will continue
efforts to push for interstate bulk purchasing, and efforts
to
negotiate harder bargains with pharmaceutical companies doing
business with Medicaid to achieve meaningful price reductions.
He will also work to use the state’s purchasing power to
help provide lower cost drugs to people without health insurance.
- Promote Patient and Physician Education. Tom
will work with providers and consumers to promote greater physician
and patient education as well as clinical effectiveness testing
to balance the onslaught of marketing and advertising by pharmaceutical
companies.
Protect and Expand Access to Affordable Healthcare for
Massachusetts Families
Tom Birmingham made universal health care coverage for children
a top priority and overrode the veto of a Republic Governor to achieve
that goal in 1996. As Governor, Tom will lead us closer to the day
when everyone in Massachusetts will have affordable health care
coverage and when barriers to health care services are eliminated.
He will provide leadership to:
- Continue Our Progress Towards Universal Access To Healthcare. In
the last six years, Tom has worked to expand access to healthcare.
Overriding Republican vetoes, Massachusetts has created universal
access for children and a national model prescription drug
program
for seniors. As Governor, Tom will continue this progress with
a goal of providing coverage for all of our people as a matter
of right. While the current fiscal crisis may set us back,
as
Governor he will keep moving forward and work to expand access
for working adults, who are 70% of the people now without health
insurance – over 250,000 people.
- Help People Get Access to Available Healthcare Services.
Tom believes that an important way to expand access
is to maximize use of our existing health care laws. Despite
our
notable successes in expanding health coverage over the past
decade, there are too many people who are eligible for care but
not enrolled
in the programs they need. Solving this problem is essential.
When people don't have health insurance, they tend to delay getting
care because they are concerned about how they will pay for the
care. But delay puts people at risk for more serious illnesses.
And more serious illnesses mean even bigger bills. We need a
Governor
who will replace the burden of unpayable bills with real health
security. As Governor, Tom will assure that enrollment in our
state’s programs is straightforward, simple and coordinated through
a single application process, using electronic or Web-based applications
whenever possible and making enrollment information available
in every physician's office, community health center, school
nurse's
office, and hospital in the state. Tom will also hold state agencies
accountable for enrollment by working with agency leaders to
set
annual enrollment goals and review progress on those goals quarterly,
focusing not just on numbers but on reaching specific underenrolled
populations throughout the state.
- Help Unemployed Workers Who Need Healthcare. The
Massachusetts Medical Security Plan provides access to affordable
healthcare for unemployed workers. But many people who need
this
healthcare don’t know about it, and Republican administrations
haven’t been telling them. As Senate President Tom enacted legislation
to strengthen this program, but only a Governor can make sure
that we do the outreach to make sure that we actually provide
this healthcare to unemployed workers and their families. Tom
Birmingham will make it a top priority to work with business,
labor, community and media leaders to ensure that eligible workers
access this program in their hour of need.
Tom has also worked to eliminate barriers to health care services
for individuals who faced other obstacles to receiving care, by
supporting:
- The Mental Health Parity Law – a
victory for equal access to health insurance for patients suffering
with mental
illness;
- The Insurance Equity Law - which requires insurers
to cover contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy for women;
- The Medical Interpreters Law – an
effort backed by additional funding to help hospitals pay for
interpreters in
their Emergency Rooms.
Tom will continue to work to eliminate barriers to access to health
care, including complementary medical care, and:
- Improve Mental Health Care Delivery. To
respond to a crisis in children’s mental health in Massachusetts,
Tom also supported the creation of the Mental Health Commission
for
Children. Tom recognizes the need for substantial progress in
the delivery of mental health services. For children in particular,
Tom believes the Republican administrations have missed a significant
opportunity to provide more streamlined and better integrated
services across state agencies. Tom will insist that the Executive
Office of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education
develop a clear, comprehensive framework for providing and
paying
for mental health services for children that allocates responsibilities
and reduces interagency finger pointing.
- Address Racial Disparity in Access to Health Care.
Tom will also work to end racial disparities in health care by
re-energizing and enhancing existing state programs and developing
creative approaches in partnership with diverse communities and
community organizations. He will collaborate with hospitals, community
health centers and physicians to promote health care that is linguistically
and culturally in synch with their patients.
Protecting and Improving the Quality of Affordable Health Care
in Massachusetts
Tom will work to ensure that quality care continues to be delivered
in Massachusetts hospitals and emergency departments, and in our
community health centers, nursing homes and communities. He will
achieve this goal by:
- Strengthening the HMO Patient’s Bill
of Rights. Tom’s leadership was instrumental in achieving a Patient’s Bill
of Rights in Massachusetts and needed reforms in managed care.
Now patients can appeal HMO decisions, and HMO’s can no longer
deny payment for medically necessary care or provide doctors
with
incentives to deny needed medical care. As Governor, Tom will
strengthen the power of patients and their doctors to make their
own, appropriate health care decisions by giving patients the
right to sue an HMO for damages caused by the denial of medically
necessary services.
- Protecting Access to Our Hospitals. Tom
knows that our hospitals are experiencing unprecedented financial
pressures
that pose tremendous challenges to nurses, physicians, emergency
departments and communities. Tom will work to fund the reasonable
costs of care provided by hospitals and physician practices
to
our Medicaid population and to ease unreasonable state administrative
burdens on providers. Tom will also ensure that state efforts
to monitor hospitals are coordinated so that essential health
care services are protected and problems are addressed before
closings are even considered. Tom’s leadership resulted in the
establishment of a 90 day waiting period before any hospital can
close, so that options may be considered to protect community
health services. And over the Governor’s veto last year, Tom worked
to secure more timely reporting of financial information by hospitals
to provide the state with current information regarding hospital
finances. In contrast to the passive, "let the health care marketplace
decide which hospitals survive" approach of the last twelve years,
as Governor, Tom will form a team of senior state agency policy
and operations managers, led by the Secretary of Health and Human
Services, who will reach out to hospitals which are or soon will
be in trouble to develop, implement, and monitor hospital-specific
stabilization plans. The team will draw on health insurance and
hospital finance and management experts from the private sector
in developing these plans. Tom will also work closely with the
Uncompensated Care Pool Special Commission to ensure fair and
adequate financing of our shared obligation to care for people
without health insurance.
- Investing in Smoking Prevention and Public Health.
Recognizing that smoking-related illnesses are the largest source
of preventable disease in the Commonwealth, and that early detection
and reduced incidence of illness will prevent emergency room use
and unnecessary hospitalization, Tom will continue to champion
the dedication of a portion of tobacco taxes to strengthen anti-smoking
programs and to protect state investment in disease prevention
programs, prenatal care and early intervention, community-based
outreach, health education, school health and other essential
public health programs.
- Ensuring Safe Staffing Levels of Nurses. Tom
Birmingham wants to make sure that when a patient presses a
call
button, there will always be a nurse ready to provide care. He
will work to assure safe staffing levels of nurses because
too
often hospitals don’t have enough nurses on duty to provide the
care patients need. This contributes to medical complications,
longer hospital stays, and long waits for treatment. In addition,
ambulances are being diverted from one hospital to another in
part because there aren’t enough nurses to help move patients
through the system and to provide care in intensive care units
so that patients can be moved out of emergency rooms, freeing
up space for emergency patients. This attention to safe staffing
levels will make the profession more attractive and increase
the
number of trained nurses who want to work in Massachusetts health
care facilities.
- Improving Patient Safety. Under
Tom’s leadership,
the Senate worked to create the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient
Safety and Medical Error Reduction, where initiatives to improve
patient safety and medical error reduction will be coordinated.
Tom believes that strong state-level coordination is needed
in
light of the myriad of patient safety and health care quality
initiatives currently underway. Tom will continue to work with
patients, consumers and providers toward this shared goal.
- Reducing Emergency Room Overcrowding. Tom recognizes
the many factors that result in overcrowded emergency rooms. As
Governor, Tom will direct needed resources to Community Health
Centers to provide timely patient care in the most appropriate
setting. Tom will also work to maximize the number of hospital
beds available in order to move patients out of our emergency
departments by making sure that beds are safely and adequately
staffed by nurses.
- Taking Care of Our Elderly. Tom
achieved passage of a comprehensive initiative to improve the
quality of care delivered
in our nursing homes, by improving the training and salaries
of caregivers and increasing their ability to meet the needs
of disabled
and aging nursing home residents. And Tom Birmingham also believes
that our elderly parents and grandparents should have the option
to live at home as long as they are able. That’s why Tom supported
the Senate creation of an enhanced community benefits package
and support for Medicare beneficiaries who wish to remain at
home.
This year, Tom supported the creation of a new program to provide
at-home services to elderly who are imminently at risk of nursing
home placement. As Governor, Tom will continue these initiatives.
- Emergency Preparedness. Tom knows that health
care providers must be prepared to respond to the emerging challenges
of these extraordinary times and that is why he is working for
the creation of a Public Health Emergency Planning Council. Tom
knows that our public health infrastructure must have the capacity
to detect and respond effectively to biological terrorism, chemical
warfare and other catastrophic events. The Birmingham administration
will work with state, local and federal officials to assess and
provide for our emergency response and training needs as well
as our medical, communication, security, facility and mental health
resource needs. Tom also knows that coordinated efforts to educate
physicians, nurses and caregivers and to inform the general public
must be a top public health priority as new challenges arise in
these uncertain times.
Respond to the Nursing Crisis and Other Workforce Challenges
Tom Birmingham appreciates the value of the Commonwealth’s dedicated
health care workforce, and the demand for their services is growing
every day. Tom Birmingham’s administration will strengthen efforts
to recruit, retain and train a diverse workforce of nurses and
other
healthcare professionals and workers at every skill level, and
will push for changes to retain these valued health care providers
by
improving working conditions. As Governor, Tom will:
- Keep nurses in the profession by ensuring safe registered nurse
to patient ratios so that the working conditions of nurses are
improved and they can provide the quality of care they are trained
to provide.
- Forge educational partnerships between hospitals and colleges
to strengthen the availability of nursing faculty.
- Ensure that state health care funding is used to provide health
care services and is not used to fund anti-union efforts or other
activities that do not directly improve patient care.
- Continue to invest in career ladder programs and in the training
of potential health care workers to improve patient access to
health care services.
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