BOSTON — U.S. Sen. Ed Markey is touting a new proposal that calls for spending hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade to deal with climate change and its impact on economic inequality and health care access.
The Democratic-led proposal, which was unveiled last month, calls for dramatically increasing federal funding for community health centers that were on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of a broader effort to improve access to health care for “under-served” communities.
Markey said the proposal is an attempt to deal with the “simultaneous crises” of climate change, social and economic inequality and barriers to health care.
“This is a crisis,” the Massachusetts Democrat said in live-streamed remarks at a Lawrence health clinic on Wednesday, flanked by local officials. “Frontline communities are suffering the impacts of climate change, and the pandemic has stretched our health care system to the