AGAWAM — “Medicare for All” is on the City Council’s agenda for its Feb. 5 meeting.

Agawam councilors will vote on whether to support Massachusetts establishing a single-payer health care system. If they approve the proposal, a resolution will be delivered to Gov. Maura Healey and local legislators urging them to support bills on Beacon Hill that would fund health care with a statewide 10% payroll tax, 7.5% on employers and 2.5% on employees.

While taxes would increase under Medicare for All, City Councilor Thomas Hendrickson, who sponsored the local resolution, said that insurance premiums, deductibles, and copays would be eliminated, making health care cheaper overall. He also said taxes would fund only the cost of care, as opposed to private health insurance where payments also support dividends to shareholders and salaries for rich executives.

He also pitched the measure as a human right.

“To deny somebody health care because they can’t afford it, I think, is just wrong,” he said. “It’s like charging somebody for the air that they breathe.”

The current health care system, he said, covers only people who can afford it and saddles them with high costs. Medicare for All, he said, would provide free coverage at the point of service.

Responding to a common criticism about wait times, Hendrickson said single-payer systems prioritize those in need rather than those who can pay. He said he would rather be on a waitlist than have people not get health care at all.

While Hendrickson said he’s received positive reactions to the resolution, he also said people don’t necessarily know about it yet. Nonetheless, he finds it hard to imagine people would be against it.

“Rising health care costs are something that impacts everybody regardless of political affiliation,” he said. “It’s something that everybody deals with and nobody is happy with right now.”

The resolution was introduced at the Jan. 17 council meeting, where two residents, Corinne Wingard and Guy Qvistgaard, spoke in favor of it. The two said it would lower health care and prescription drug costs and save money for the town, its residents, and small businesses.

Hendrickson said it would save the town government approximately $13 million on health care, which could be spent elsewhere. That number is the difference between the $18 million Agawam spent on health care in fiscal year 2023, and the $5 million in wages that would be taken as taxes to fund Medicare for All, had it  been in place during that fiscal year.

Hendrickson said he hopes the resolution will put pressure on Agawam’s legislators — state Sen. John Velis (D-Westfield), state Rep. Michael Finn (D-West Springfield), and state Rep. Nicholas Boldyga (R-Southwick). Boldyga and Velis were not available to comment on the resolution. Finn, whose district includes Precinct 1 in North Agawam, said he wasn’t yet convinced, citing concerns about affordability.

 “Truthfully, I haven’t spent as much time looking into that particular issue, but I know that it’s extremely complicated,” Finn said. “It’s a major overhaul to the current health care system, and I just think that there’s still a lot of things that’s yet to be determined.”

Hendrickson said he thinks that with changes in the composition of the City Council following the election of November 2023, the resolution stands a better chance of passing this year than in previous years.

“There’s never a bad time to be on board with Medicare for All, in my opinion,” he said.

The Medicare for All bills on Beacon Hill are sponsored by state Reps. Lindsay Sabadosa (D-Northampton) and Denise Garlick (D-Needham), and state Sen. James Eldridge (D-Marlborough). They were referred to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, which has taken no action on them since October 2023.

City Council meetings usually take place at the Agawam Senior Center, 954 Main St., Agawam, at 7 p.m.