Healthcare is Failing our Women

Today is International Day of the Girl and this month marks the beginning of the 33rd Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and yet the cost of breast cancer detection and monitoring leaves mammograms out of reach for many Bay State women. As the cost of healthcare continues to rise, it’s important to remember high cost does not translate into high quality. The high cost stems from bad policy from two places: Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill. Our legislature has failed to protect the Commonwealth from the Medical Device Tax, one of the many Federal policies which make healthcare unaffordable. While my opponent focuses on a constitutional amendment to make his new tax bill legal, women are being left behind.

Screening for breast cancer once is expensive enough. But our women need a frequency of screening that matches their personal risk of developing invasive cancer.

For women in Massachusetts a mammogram can cost anywhere from $600 dollars at Brigham and Women’s to $300 dollars at Winchester Hospital. A bill at either the federal or state level sheltering our healthcare providers from the Federal Medical Device Tax should have been a top priority for 2017 and 2018. Instead, our local legislature prioritized a pay raise for themselves which translated to an additional $42,000 into State Senator Jason Lewis’ pocket.

Here is what an extra $42,000 could have paid for:

• 140 Mammograms at Winchester Hospital.
• 2,800 monthly supplies of birth control.
• 168 Ultrasounds
• 210 tests for ovarian cancer.
• 4 months of the latest cancer drugs for a woman in need.
• 28 DNA kits processed for victims of sexual assault.

Regardless of political party, gender, income, education or employment: every single one of us should be looking at Beacon Hill and questioning their priorities the way we do for Capitol Hill. Why are new taxes in a time of tax surplus a priority? Why are pay raises for politicians prioritized over funding our schools? Why is our state failing to make healthcare affordable?

What would I do? Change how businesses can buy insurance for one. I have long advocated for small business cooperatives: allowing multiple small business employers to team up and buy insurance as a group at discounted rates. This grants access to affordable health care to many who would not otherwise have it and shifts the burden away from the Massachusetts’ Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs. I would shelter our healthcare providers from unnecessary taxation through incentives, while holding insurance companies accountable when they fail patients and hospitals alike. Beyond healthcare I would recognize that while it is fine for a politician to talk about their successes, it is their failures that define their term in office. Healthcare is just one of the categories where my opponent is failing you… but I will save the lack of affordable housing, the cost of living and the opioid crisis for future articles.

I am Erin Calvo-Bacci, and I am running for State Senate.