An approach favored by Universal Health Care Action Network members Ted Marmor and Ken Frisoff would provide federal fiscal incentives to states which implement universal coverage mechanisms. Even further devolved are state-focused campaigns that all but ignore federal policymakers. Across the country from New York to Nashville, from San Diego to Sandusky, activists, political candidates, health care providers and government agencies are forming state-specific alliances and coalitions. Such efforts embody their own unique regionalisms. Whereas previous state coalitions were dominated by activist groups, new movements for statewide universal health care are now joined or even spearheaded by individuals and agencies that traditionally kept their distance from the single payer concept.
Advocates are increasingly optimistic about the bill's eventual passage.
The state legislature, viewing summaries of the reports, has chosen to accept the studies rather than conduct their own. MMS has not yet publicly released the studies which reportedly advocate a single-payer system and predict millions or even billions of dollars in savings for the state. 8 Good old-fashioned activism is by no means absent from the mix. At last year's convention of the American Association of Health Plans in Boston, members of the Massachusetts Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care shoveled dried beans into buckets and delivered them to managed care executives. 9 In Maryland , Dr. Peter Beilenson, Baltimore City Health Commissioner, is spearheading the formation of the statewide Total Access to Health coalition to implement a single-payer system.