Rep. Lewis has filed the following bills to address healthcare issues:
An Act to Provide Improved Medicare for All: This legislation guarantees every Massachusetts resident quality healthcare coverage and reduces costs to state and local government, businesses, and families. It creates a comprehensive, public plan like Medicare available to residents of all ages, and would save billions of dollars annually by greatly simplifying administrative overhead incurred under our current healthcare system by providers and insurance carriers.
An Act to Establish a Public Health Insurance Option: This bill would create a public health insurance program to compete with private insurers in order to offer consumers more choice and help drive down healthcare costs. By reducing overhead and administrative costs, a public option plan can offer more affordable health insurance for consumers. The public option would be financed initially with a modest surcharge on insurance reserves but would rely on its own revenues and become self-sufficient within one year.
An Act to Reduce Healthcare Costs by Promoting Provider Education through Academic Detailing: Academic detailing involves face-to-face education of prescribers by trained healthcare professionals, typically pharmacists, physicians, or nurses. The goal is to provide doctors with unbiased, evidence-based information on drugs available to treat specific conditions. Academic detailing programs in various states have been shown to improve patient outcomes and help contain rising drug costs. This bill strengthens the Commonwealth’s existing academic detailing program by creating a sustainable funding mechanism that does not rely on public taxpayer dollars.
An Act to Provide Personal Care Attendant Orientation: For over thirty years, the PCA program has been a central piece of the MassHealth long term care system. Today, nearly 25,000 PCAs skillfully help more than 19,000 state residents live independent lives at home. However, there is widespread recognition that additional training should be offered to PCAs to help improve service delivery and counteract any fraud or abuse. This bill establishes an orientation program for new PCAs so that they will be better educated on their rights and responsibilities.
An Act to Promote Prevention and Wellness through a Public Health Trust: This bill links public health and healthcare services into a comprehensive system that will result in a healthier population and lower overall healthcare costs. The bill seeks to reduce the $34 billion that chronic diseases cost Massachusetts each year in medical expenditures and lost productivity. The bill establishes a new Prevention and Cost Control Trust to fund community-based interventions that will improve healthy choices in neighborhoods and communities, conditions which research shows account for 88% of our health and which are not amenable to prevention in a clinical setting. Interventions must address health conditions certified by an oversight Board to be of high prevalence, costly, and preventable at the community-level.
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Rep. Lewis has also c0-sponsored several pieces of legislation dealing with healthcare issues:
An act establishing paid sick days
An act to encourage preventive care
An act to establish a childhood prevention program and immunization registry
An act promoting patient engagement in healthcare decisions
An act to curtail tobacco addiction and related healthcare costs
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You can see a full list of the legislation Rep Lewis has filed or co-sponsored here.