Sen. Jamie Eldridge. (Courtesy photo)
State Sen. Jamie Eldridge, who has represented the Middlesex and Worcester District in the state Senate for the past decade, is running unopposed for another term. Before becoming a state senator in 2009, the lifelong Acton resident served three terms in the state House of Representatives.
Eldridge is the Senate chair for several of the Legislature’s caucuses, including those on clean energy, criminal justice reform, and Medicare for All. Eldridge is also one of several legislators who recently urged the state Department of Transportation to create a Northern Tier Rail by buying freight line Pan Am Railway’s right of way to extend the Boston-Fitchburg passenger rail connection west to North Adams.
The Press posed the same questions to Eldridge as to candidates for state representative Cathy Clark and Dan Sena. Sen. Eldridge also answered by email. (The responses were edited only to follow Press style in spelling and punctuation; they were not edited for length.)
State revenue is estimated to be down $5 billion or more. How would you support dealing with that shortfall? And do you think the state can fulfill the governor’s promise to maintain support for local aid?
Given the growing consensus that state revenues have dropped $5 billion due to impact of COVID-19 on the economy, I fully support passing a progressive tax package to raise billions of dollars, and using some of the [state’s] $3.5 billion rainy day fund, to balance the budget [and] avoid budget cuts to communities and important social safety net programs. On the local aid front, I am deeply grateful to the Senate president, the speaker of the House, and the governor for so far avoiding cuts to local aid or education funding, but I am concerned that without adequate federal or state revenue, there could be budget cuts.
Do you support or oppose the police reform legislation that is stalled in the Legislature? Or are there changes that you’d want to see in it so that you could support it?
Yes, I voted for the police reform bill and strongly support it. It’s really important to emphasize that the bill has common-sense provisions around the training and licensing of police officers, limits on the use of force, chokeholds and tear gas, leveling the playing field for civilians who have had their civil rights violated by law enforcement. I am proud that the Legislature took bold action in response to racial justice protests across America, including in Massachusetts, after the killing of George Floyd. I am hopeful that the conference committee will produce a strong bill that strikes a blow against racial injustice.
You support Medicare for All in Massachusetts. But can a state afford such a plan on its own, without federal backing? How can a state deal with national drug companies to control prices?
I am proud to be the lead Senate sponsor of An Act to Establish Medicare For All in Massachusetts, making health care a right in the Commonwealth. It’s important to remember that a Medicare-styled system saves money in the health care system, because you remove the profit, burdensome bureaucratic paperwork from health insurance companies, and exorbitant cost of unregulated prescription drugs.
My bill would finance a single-payer health care system by a state payroll tax, taxing the wealthy, and rolling federal health care spending into a health care trust fund. To reduce the cost of prescription drugs, the state could create a bulk prescription drug program, using the government’s economies of scale to better bargain with pharmaceutical companies. When you consider that many European nations that have universal health care have the same population as the state of Massachusetts, it seems absolutely possible.
