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In Quiet Year, Ballot Measures Draw Fight

Mass. referenda deal with taxes and health care

He also suggested the lower state taxes would simply shift the tax burden to local governments.

The few polls that have been taken on Questions Four and Six indicate that both have significant public popularity.

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Question Seven also seeks to decrease income taxes, though only to those who make charitable contributions. Opposition to this measure, which would have a much smaller cost than the other tax cuts, is light.

A Healthy State?

The future of the state's health care policy is also on the ballot. Question Five proposes a patient bill of rights to require insurance companies to give certain protections to customers in Massachusetts.

Insurance companies would be prevented from spending more than 10 percent of revenues on costs other than direct health services, limiting the advertising and lobbying expenditures of these companies, according to opponents.

The proposal would also try to establish universal health care coverage in Massachusetts by requiring that a universal system be in place before insurance companies and hospitals could convert to for-profit status.

Supporters say they hope this would create an incentive for insurance companies and hospitals to encourage universal health care.

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