Greater Boston Interfaith Organization is keeping the heat on the legislature to make the health care compromise something that actually provides, like, health care. Pretty poor showing from Senators — what or whom are they afraid of?
GBIO invited eight Boston area senators to come address the recent gathering. “Make the calls. Push us for a better healthcare plan,” Senator Jarrett Barrios of Cambridge, the lone one to show up, told the gathering. It seemed an odd request, coming from someone who was supposed to be the one they sent to Beacon Hill to sit at the table and help craft such a plan.
“Unless you create a countervailing pressure to make them fear the consequences from their constituents more than those of the institution, the institution wins out every time,” said the Rev. Ray Hammond, another GBIO leader, following the meeting.
I know some people don’t like Barrios, but give the man credit: He shows up to stuff like this. He gathered signatures for the MassACT ballot initiative. He talked to us at length about the health care negotiations way back in October. For all who call this “grandstanding”: There is no more substantive thing a constituent can do than to contact his/her representatives. They listen. They have to. (This obviously has nothing to do with Middlesex DA, but there it is.)
617-722-2000, State House switchboard. Call ’em up and tell ’em how you feel. Put it in the speed dial.
Barrios showing up has everything to do with Middlesex DA you naieve little waif