C. FRAZER SHIPMAN, MD:
60 years of work toward Medicare for All
Information About Written Testimony for MMS Members
Starting on 11/18/24 and continuing through 11/22/24 brief key information will appear right here. You must be logged on to the
MMS website as a member to use the link.
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Each day I will post a few key points for us to bring out.
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New Resolved-"Resolved-The MMS will acknowledge that district members may initiate groups to study Massachusetts Medicare for All legislation, and Will allow such voluntary groups to be formed without prohibition, hindrance, or contradiction, within their own districts, without providing any funding."
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​If the link doesn't work for you, then go to the next section for
instructions to navigate to the right place on the MMS webstie.
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FIRST STEP ALWAYS-LOG ONTO THE MMS WEBSITE WWW.MASSMED.ORG AS A MEMBER.​
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To navigate on the MMS website www.massmed.org.
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Once you are logged in, you will see at the very top of the screen a scrolling panel. When
you see the Interim Meeting panel, left click anywhere in the panel. You will land on the Interim Meeting page. Scroll down the page a little looking on the right side of the page for "The online testimony site is open..."Left click on the blue part "online testimony site."
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Look for "Reference Committee B" you will see a numbered list, look for #7 "A Resolution Supporting Member Initiated Groups to Study..." Left click on # 7 and enter your testimony.​
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Essential requirements for each post-
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Name, district, and then "testifying FOR this resolution." Capitalize FOR. Look for a box to check
that clearly states you are testifying FOR. If the box is not evident, no problem.
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Remember that you are testifying for the resolved only, not for M4A as a movement, not for Single
Payer, not for passage of the bill...the resolved only.
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A short post of 2 to 3 sentences is fine. Give reasons with supporting facts, not opinions.
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REMEMBER TO CLICK ON "SAVE"AND THEN YOU WILL SEE YOUR POST POPULATE ON THE
WEBSITE.​
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Explain why we want to have our groups within our districts-for example,
districts are the grassroots of the MMS;
the 20 districts vary greatly in important characteristics like- racial demographics,
socio-economic make up, rural-suburban-urban setting;
since the leadership of the state level is heavy with predominantly wealthy white suburban districts, we need balance,
only about 20% of the districts are strongly influenced by the MMS publishing effort (97 plus % of the MMS budget from the MMS IRS tax returns), these districts need to be balanced by districts NOT involved in
the MMS 400 million dollars a year global publishing effort.
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YOUR IDEAS IN YOUR OWN VOICE WILL INFLUENCE THE REF COM MEMBERS THE MOST
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END FOR 11/19/24 8 AM
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ABOUT
C. Frazer Shipman, MD
This website has been active for about 6 months now. I have been very busy with trying to pass a Medicare for All resolution through the House of Delegates (HOD) of the Massachusetts Medical Society. The resolution is still being worked on by the HOD as of late October, 2024. We started on this effort in May of 2023. Work on the resolution has gotten a little less intensive so I got back to work on the site.
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My focus is still on site visitors who are most interested in the Franklin County Mass Study Group on Mass M4A and secondarily on Mass activists following the second M4A resolution.
Why me? 60 years ago, when I was 15 yrs old, I decided to study medicine with a focus on National Health Insurance. It was 1964 and America was in a period of very intense social change. I felt that American medicine needed a much stronger social conscience. President Kennedy had been assassinated just months before in November of 1963, the civil rights movement was intensely active, and President Johnson was working diligently to pass a bill that would soon be known as the Medicare bill.
I volunteered to take the FOR position in our civics class debate on the Medicare bill. In college I was pre-med (combined with sociology), then med school, then a three year family medicine residency, then two years as a family doctor in the very remote White Mountain Apache Nation, then a 1 and 1/2 year fellowship in social medicine paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Then everything fell apart-Reagan beat Carter and all opportunity for left leaning doctors like me all but disappeared. From 1982 to now, I have done my reform projects during my scant free time while doing full range family medicine-not just the office, full range includes every aspect of medicine-deliver the babies, cover the ER, the ICU, do surgery... everything...over the last 42 years I have worked in over 80 locations in a dozen states and five American Indian Nations-Mashpee, Hoopa, Sioux, and 3 years in the Navajo Nation (2013 to 2015). Nights and weekends I did my reform projects-I always had one going so there have been a lot of them.
Currently I am doing three at the same time-the Franklin County Study Group, indigenous health care reform in Mass, and a study of possible corruption in the Massachusetts Medical Society in the form of our second Medicare for All resolution noted above.
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If you are most interested in the Study Group please go to Reform Project 1 now,
If your interest is the Mass Med Society Medicare for All resolution, go to Reform Project 2
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MY WORK
Medicare for All in Massachusetts
Franklin County Study Group
If you are a resident of Franklin County and have seen one of my flyers or heard about the project from someone, many thanks for taking a quick look.
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Beginning last summer, I tried to get the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS), 25,000 members, over 400 million dollars a year in revenue, to allow our Franklin District Medical Society to run a Study Group focusing on our state Medicare for All Bill H.1239/S.744. The MMS doctors all over the state, over 4,000 of them wanted to go forward in all 20 Districts (Counties or parts of Counties). About 30 high level leader doctors, including the 7 Officers, especially the President blocked our effort and prevented us from using "even one penny of State Society (MMS) money. Each District Medical Society is a separate corporation. The 20 District corporations contribute almost all of their dues to the State Medical Society called the MMS. The Franklin District leaders cannot use their own money because the State controls 90% of every penny spent. That is where we were at as of December 9th, 2023.
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To keep moving forward, I decided to form a Franklin County Study Group with only my own money and time.
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The Franklin County Study Group or FCSG has no meetings, no fees, no requirements, no hassles. I will be uploading useful information and links to help you learn about the bill. That will be in the Reform Projects area of this website. I try to do something every day to improve this site and get you useful info and links. I am slowed down by the constant barriers and challenges thrown at me by the MMS high leaders. Please be patient.
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Many thanks for being on the site. Frazer 3/16/24
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This project is a major effort to involve many thousands of residents of one county in Massachusetts in learning about an act establishing Medicare for all in Massachusetts Senate Bill 744.
Learn More about our Latest Medical Projects
MY WORK
Press
I am a physician activist and researcher for Mass Medicare for All legislation — An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts (H.1239/S.744). Today I posted the first public announcement of our first in the U.S. county level study group focused on a state M4A bill. This is my 60th year as an M4A activist — first speech to my high school civics class in 1964. My activism includes Penn State Medical School, family medicine residency in Bangor, Maine, two years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Dept of Defense as one of four family doctors caring for 10,000 Apache in the White Mountain Apache Nation, two years as a social medicine fellow at UNC Chapel Hill Medical School in a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Fellowship, and many, many years in the best school — The School of Hard Knocks. I have recently been the author and primary sponsor of two Massachusetts Medical Society M4A resolutions. Both have been defeated by the highest level officers but supported by 4,000 MMS members including the president of the Franklin County District Medical Society who was a co-sponsor on both resolutions. The announcement went up at Catalpa today.
For more info go to www.cfrazershipmanmd.com and keep coming back because my first professional help on the website is tomorrow.
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Cullen Shipman, MD
Contact
Phone Number:
no phone at this time
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