Health Care for All

HCFA supported Massachusetts’s state government-run health care takeover in 2006 and 2012 ³ and supports expansion of state-funded healthcare services to illegal immigrants, ⁴ opposes enforcement of immigration laws, ⁵ has said U.S. health care systems are riddled with structural racism,” ⁶ and supports the far-left Black Lives Matter movement.” ⁶

Amy Rosenthal is HCFA’s executive director. ² She has previously worked for the left-of-center Community Catalyst and left-progressive feminist Barbara Lee Family Foundation. ⁷

History and Leadership

Health Care For All (HCFA) was founded in 1982 ² to advocate at the federal, state, and local level for government-funded health care programs. HCFA supported Massachusetts’ state-government takeover of health care in 2006 in 2012. ³

Amy Rosenthal has been the executive director of Health Care For All (HCFA) since 2017. ² She is a lecturer at the Harvard University School of Public Health and has previously worked at the left-of-center Community Catalyst, which advocates to change hospitals from nonprofit to for-profit status; ² the left-progressive feminist Barbara Lee Family Foundation; ⁷ and for the failed gubernatorial campaign of Myrth York (D-RI). ⁷

Activities and Funding

Health Care For All (HCFA) advocates on various health care issues in Massachusetts, including expansion of the state’s government-run health care plan to illegal immigrants, ⁴ opposing enforcement of immigration laws, ⁵ supporting prescription drug reform, expanding child health services, ⁸ and advocating for patient-family advisory councils, ⁹ dental care, and other issues. ¹⁰

HCFA works in conjunction with its partner organization Health Law Advocates (HLA) to lead the Immigrant Health Care Access Coalition (IHAC). ^{11 12} This group opposes deportation of illegal immigrants and supports extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), programs which provide de-facto or explicit amnesty for certain classes of otherwise-illegal immigrants currently in the United States. ¹³

HCFA supports the far-left Black Lives Matter movement and has said U.S. health care systems are “riddled with structural racism.” ⁶

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

Health Care for All was a cosigner on an April 2021 letter to President Joe Biden asking the administration to promote weather dependent wind and solar power systems and “end the fossil fuel era.” The letter also advised the president to “Phase out nuclear energy as an inherently dirty, dangerous and costly energy source.” ¹⁴

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and from 1990 until 2021 accounted for 20 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ¹⁵ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ¹⁶ A 2020 analysis from Our World in Data reported that nuclear energy “results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas,” making it “just as safe” as wind and solar power production. ¹⁷ The U.S. Department of Energy has concluded that “nuclear energy produces more electricity on less land than any other clean-air source” and that it would require “more than 3 million solar panels to produce the same amount of power as a typical commercial reactor or more than 430 wind turbines.” ¹⁸

Funding

In 2020, HCFA received $20,000 from left-of-center Community Catalyst. ¹⁹

In 2019, Health Care For All (HCFA) received $3,148,688 in contributions and grants, ²⁰ an increase from $2,513,862 in 2018. HCFA received $57,500 from the Tufts Health Plan Foundation ²¹ and $10,000 from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2019. ²²

In 2018, HCFA received $180,000 from Children’s Hospital Corporation, ²³ 45,300 from Tufts Health Plan Foundation, ²⁴ and $35,180 from the left-of-center Pew Charitable Trusts. ²⁵

HCFA has also received grants worth $20,000 from the left-of-center National Institute for Reproductive Health in 2016 ²⁶ and $25,000 from the Tufts Health Plan Foundation in 2015. ²⁷

Health Care For All is the parent organization of Health Law Advocates. ^{11 12}