With all due respect, I feel obligated to challenge your title statement: “It’s Not How You’re Covered…It’s How You’re Treated”

These issues are intimately intertwined!! In this post you yourself used the compelling quote from MLK about the injustice of inequality in hc.

Well, many activists of all colors and ethnicities understand that our country’s lack of a national health insurance program is an unfinished piece of the civil rights movement.

That’s why many of us here in MA had worked for 4 years to establish a constitutional right to comprehensive, affordable and equitabley financed health insurance. Tens of thousands of MA voters signed the initiative petition for the HC Amendment becasue they share a deep concern about the high numbers of uninsured and underinsured and the ever-rising costs.

Activists such as you and me and many other clinicians are moved to take action on this, knowing the gross overrepresentation of people color who are among the uninsured. Piles of data and the lived experiences of patients, families, and those of us who provide care on the front-lines tell us that the uninsured live sicker lives and die younger…

What a national and a state disgrace.

Yes, as you say so well, multifactoral issues and causes of health disparities certainly exist and all must be addressed. But let’s make sure that as a community (a state, nation) we acknowledge and SUCCESSFULLY ADDRESS the moral, clinical, and economic imperative to guarantee quality insurance coverage for all.

This Chapter 58 plan just isn’t gonna’ get us there.

So while we celebrate the good things Chap 58 has done let’s get to work re-charting the course to achieve these remaining goals.

As you know, lives are depending on it.

To learn more about this work visit http://www.DefendHealth.org and considerr coming to a forum on Thurs. April 12, 6-8 pm, Universal Health Care: Paving the way toward a healthy society. At Simmons College Library, Kotzen Room. Event details on website. Thanks again, Elmer, hope to see you 4/12 -Ann E Malone, RN, MSN