Cape Cod Residents Balloting Shows Support For Singe-Payer Health Insurance

November 5, 2008 8:51 a.m. EST

Cape Cod, MA (AHN) - Early results show voters on Cape Cod supporting a non-binding resolution calling for a forerunner of single-payer health insurance in Massachusetts, similar measures were also on the ballot in other municipalities around the state.

Although more people have health insurance now that Massachusetts has a system requiring residents purchase health insurance or pay fines, the system is viewed by many as not working.

Incumbent state representative, Sarah Peake (D-Provincetown), who won re-election Tuesday, has called Massachusetts's health insurance reform a failure. She has said that although more people have health insurance now, that the costs are eating budgets and that it has been particularly hard on small businesses.

Peake reportedly supported the resolution for an initiative that would establish something called Cape Care, a regional, community-owned health care system for Cape Cod, which would set the stage for broader, single-payer health care reform in the future.

Along with high costs, supporters of the initiative say that the current health care reform system in the state is too fragmented to work.

However, opponents say that they have concerns over government taking over health care.

The Cape Care initiative is similar to the broader Mass Care Single Payer Bill being put forward as the The Massachusetts Health Care Trust Bill (S.703). It would establish a statewide single payer health care system in the state offering high quality universal health care to every resident in the state.

Proponents of the bill state on the Mass Care website that along with offering first-rate care to everyone, that the system would be a money saver for everyone: state and local government, businesses and residents.