Sorry for the light posting yesterday — all three of us have had work-life commitments … Anyway, here’s what’s doing:
- MA-05: Candidates continue to evolve on health care. Not to get too circular and self-referential with the other blogs, but Susan sums it all up well:
clipped from www.beyond495.com
Check this out: Lynne calls Eileen Donoghue out to clarify comments she’s made about healthcare. Discussion ensues in the comments. Candidate responds.
Lynne invites Jamie Eldridge to respond to a question. Discussion ensues. Campaign manager (correctly identified as campaign manager, and not writing under the candidate’s byline) responds. Read the whole thing at Left in Lowell.
- Interesting strategy: MA Dems chair John Walsh wants to get national party leaders to lean on local legislators to kill the anti-marriage amendment. Good political sense, since a full ballot-battle would be an enormous, national distraction to the party.
clipped from www.boston.com
Walsh said the legislators on MassEquality’s list are Democrats who would be open to considering the impact of a highly emotional and expensive ballot campaign.
Also trying to negotiate a role for the national party is the recently resigned chairman, Philip W. Johnston, who has made the case to Dean’s staff that a full-fledged battle in Massachusetts over same-sex marriage next year would be a blow to the party’s 2008 efforts. “This would be a very foolish waste of resources,” Johnston said.
- Lots on John Kerry:
- Kerry plans to raise bucks to pressure pro-war Republicans in vulnerable seats: Sununu (NH), Collins (ME), Coleman (MN), and maybe even McConnell (KY). Interesting move; Kerry continues to use that fabulous 2004 mailing list in some intriguing and innovative ways. I think he’s done quite well with it, overall.
- Kerry proposes health care reinsurance: The gov’t takes over the most expensive cases, thereby lowering rates for everyone else.
It’s called “reinsurance.” Reinsurance means that if employers agree to offer all their workers preventative care and quality coverage, then the federal government will reimburse them for a significant portion of the costs of their chronically ill employees.
It’s simple: If the federal government can help small and large businesses bear the burden of cost in the most exp
ensive cases, we’ll dramatically improve the health of everyone.This was actually one of the most interesting aspects of Trav’s original plan for MA; yeah, it would have been expensive for the state. On the other hand, what we’ve got now is expensive all around.
- A reader points out the following irony:
(Here’s Alex Beam’s review of the Cape Wind book on the right. Looks delish.)
It’s time for Big John to take a firm stand on Cape Wind — something he’s assiduously avoided doing. But as we keep saying, you can’t say you support alternative energy and then obstruct (Kennedy) or dither (Kerry) when the opportunity to make a signficant advance is right in front of your nose.
Kerry is sometimes seen as aloof from his home state, as more involved in big-picture national issues or his own presidential prospects. This would be a great way for him to connect with the folks at home by leading on a popular issue.
- Speaking of Cape Wind and our congressional delegation: I’ve got a request in to Ed Markey to come out up or down on Cape Wind. Still waiting for a response — which may indicate that they’re not 100% comfortable talking about it.
(PS: Hey Brett — great interview, but why didn’t you ask him about Cape Wind?)
- The Cape Wind permitting process is now (ironically) tied up in the Minerals Management Service. They’re taking public comments on this until
May 11sorry, May 21. Go to their form and tell them what you think. - Gov. Patrick’s gonna have to get new shirts, ’cause he’s got something big up his sleeve when it comes to education funding. It’s funny — when I was talking with Sen. Jehlen last week I mentioned that Patrick was making noises about a major shift in funding, presumably requiring more revenue. She shrugged — she had no more idea what he was actually proposing than anyone of us. So it’s still a tantalizing mystery … Perhaps we might see a tax hike with the money going to a dedicated education fund — a “lock box”, if you will.
Sad* that the national Dems won’t protect marriage equality because it’s the right thing to do, but at least for once it is in their political interest to do so. I hope they listen to Walsh. I will enjoy falling, for once, on the uphill side of other people’s political expediency.
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*so so so very sad.
Gays have always been able to marry, just look at New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, just not someone of the same sex.
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http://www.msnbc.msn…
I have spent over two years telling the world that our fight is not about “marriage” it is about “equality.”
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Now I gues I need to say it is about “expediency.”
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Very very sad indeed.
Some very good discussion on the health care issue. A quick point on Jamie’s position on this issue. I noticed a couple of posts labeling Jamie’s support of single payer “politically expedient” and opportunistic. I think Jamie’s support of single payer is the exact opposite of being politically expedient. How can it be expedient to be one of the few people — outside or inside the Washington beltway — pushing the issue hard when everyone else is against it? Taking tough stances on issues that don’t have broad support at the time is hardly being opportunistic. I believe it is “politically expedient” to say things like Niki (and Eileen) have intimated, that single payer is not realistic, so let’s drop it. That is the very definition of being politically expedient: to take the side of most other politicians.
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Single payer may not be attainable today, tomorrow, or in five years. But Jamie is supporting it not because he wants it passed tomorrow, but because he wants it one day passed as the best solution for America. Just because something isn’t immediately possible, and thus political gold for politicians to immediately jump on board with, doesn’t mean it isn’t right. Single payer is the right solution, and Jamie is the only candidate who has unequiovically and unabashedly come out for it.
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I think we would all want someone as our congressman who is willing to pursue the tough fights, especially when they’re not popular. We need more leaders who are willing to take on these fights. This makes entirely clear why Jamie is head-and-shoulders the best choice in this race.
It’s not expedient, it’s prescient.
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There’s going to be a day when the tipping point will be reached and suddenly everyone will look like schmucks for being against national health care. Hopefully, that day will occur soon, but considering this mess we’re in with the Massachusetts health bill, that day isn’t today. Things would be much better if we just created a state health care system for all.
But I beg to differ, or maybe it’s only a quibble, with Winston’s point about Jamie advocating for Single Payer reform: “How can it be expedient to be one of the few people — outside or inside the Washington beltway — pushing the issue hard when everyone else is against it?”.
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As Lynne states/links so effectively on her LIL post “single payer universal health care is actually supported by the mainstream of American voters.”
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So it’s not that few ordinary people/ voters want Single Payer, it’s that few politicians have the gonads to stand up to the insurance/big Pharma industries to advocate for it! Jamie’s long-standing advocacy for single-payer (not merely passive “I support it, but…”) is one of the many good reasons to elect Jamie Eldridge to Congress!!
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To contribute further to the HC items in this post:
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I’ll repeat for emphasis “John Kerry’s Health Reinsurance Idea is Counter Productive”.
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Lastly, on Fri. 5/4 at 3pm you can listen to wbur’s 90.9 FM radio program on the MA Health Reform Law and call-in your question/comment to 800-423-8255.
I agree with you completely, and I also believe that a big chunk of America is in support of single-payer. I meant to say, and perhaps I butchered my words, that most members of Congress, even liberals, will not come out in favor single payer. I think many of them are afraid to take what they perceive as a “bold” stance.
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It is on this issue, as well as many others, that helps Jamie stand out above the rest of the candidates. He would support single-payer legislation on the floor of the House even if he has to stand alone. To me, that is not political expediency, but showing strong, much-needed leadership on an issue where few members of Congress are showing leadership.
Addressing MASC, Patrick said:
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“It seems to me the time is at hand, and the appetite is right among you and the folks you represent and so many others, to get back to basics and figure out how to do this right,” Patrick said. “The property tax is not working.”
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I’m just guessing here, but this sounds like a proposed tax shift from local property tax to state tax. Lest we think that shifting where dollars come from is some sort of panacea, we should be mindful that there are a variety of funding structures throughout the country. In Michigan, local property levies are typically associated with
capital improvements (nearly 80% of operating budget funding comes from the state); in Virginia, you have a county funding system; and in Hawaii, there is only one school district for the entire state. Yet, these states, along with the rest call for more educational dollars. Many would say their systems “aren’t working”.
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By what measure does Patrick say our system isn’t working:
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Does he believe property tax bills are too high?
This is generally the case in the suburbs, not so much in the cities. Shifting the tax from property tax, to let’s say income tax, will not alleviate the tax burden on these communities. More importantly, when state revenues grow by less than 5% annually, no tax shift can keep up with the 6-9% increase in school spending.
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Do we not spend enough on education?
Patrick should define what he thinks is required and what can be expected in return for that investment. And I am not talking about feel good metrics. I’m talking about data that shows continuous improvement in academic achievement, juvenile crime rate,… something demonstrable. There are a lot of snake oil salesman in the education industry.
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Is it the achievement gap?
Patrick is not alone in not having a clue about how to address this issue. METCO? Headstart? After 30 years we should see some marked improvement given the amount of money invested in these programs. We haven’t.
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Cities tend to have a higher percentage of property dedicated to government agencies, non-profits, and universities, land which generates zero property tax revenue.
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Furthermore, cities are far more susceptible to recessions — just look at all the empty retail space in Boston proper. Those values have gone down, sending property taxes on homes skyrocketing.
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I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’m not convinced you’re right either…
And a great graphic to boot.
closed along with the poverty gap and the civil rights gap in the 1960s & 1970s. The measured IQ gap fell, I believe by about a quarter of a standard deviation.
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Around the time the new era of economic inequality began in 1980, progress on the achievement gap stopped. Some try to explain this away as confusing cause and effect (Charles Murray), or as the failure of the socialist plantation, but my interpretation of the data is that socioeconomic standing and measured education outcomes are strongly correlated. I don’t have any proposal to address the socioeconomic gap, except that I prefer a modest shift away from dependence on the property tax to fund education, towards the national average of state funding.
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Ken DeRosa may (or may not) have better ideas about how to close the achievement gap than METCO, Head Start, or various state courts that have mandated equalization of school spending, but even if he were appointed educational Czar and decreed universal adoption of DI, extended learning time and other initiatives he chooses, it is unlikely that many more schools would meet the metrics established by No Child Left Behind. If DeRosa’s reforms were able to move some schools from 20% proficient to 50% proficient and others from 50% to 80%, that would be a remarkable achievement, but it would not be good enough to avoid failing No Child Left Behind’s standards. And it is a lot easier to move individual school’s results than to move results for whole school districts.
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As far as Patrick’s plan, so far, what I have heard is that he encourages other people to suggest changes, but as far as new taxes, he has said “we aren’t ready to go there”. The Mass Association of School Committees, as representatives of cities and towns, was as receptive as anyone to the idea of reducing the reliance on property taxes. An excellent audience for proclaiming it is time to fix that problem.
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I suspect Patrick’s traction will not be quite as good if he advances to making a concrete proposal for how to replace revenues, even if he comes up with a good proposal and his staff does a good job coordinating delivery of a well-crafted message to support it.
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My guidelines for a reform include:
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– Must continue the existing target share reform, which also has a goal of property tax equity.
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– Patrick’s strongest point on taxes has been that he wants to reduce property taxes. The reform should concretely achieve that goal.
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– The foundation budget has not been revised since the establishment of the MCAS and No Child Left Behind’s accountability goals, and it should be realistically reevaulated.
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– Accountability goals of both No Child Left Behind and MCAS should also be reviewed to assure that the goals are achievable and affordable within the foundation budget. The state of California estimated that achieving No Child Left Behind’s 100% proficiency goal would require increasing the funding of state government by some phenomenal amount – I believe it was a ten-fold increase of spending. It’s time for reality-based accountability goals and sanctions based on proven best practices rather than George Bush’s plan.
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– The charter school funding formula should also be fixed, with the state accepting some responsibility for funding charter schools. Charter school tuitions to towns should be the same as public school choice tuitions, with the state filling in the gap.
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ALL insurance companies have reinsurance NOW – it’s required by state law! And that is NOT the definition of it!
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There is a REASON the Mass. system works the way it does – it discriminates less against the chronically ill and disabled than any other state!
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Example – In Oklahoma, they have such a ‘reinsurance’ pool. The name has morphed very quickly to the Bad Risk Pool. When medical underwriting deems that you can be placed there, you have a $500,000 LIFETIME limit. It is not an exaggeration to say that a 7 yr. old diagnosed with leukemia would have hit that ceiling before graduating from high school. And then no converage for the rest of his life.
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In Mass., we have Banding. Whenever a new policy is started by a business, all policies written in that year by that company become the loss ratio – sort of like a high school class. If the Class of 2006 has good medical experience overall, their rate increase is low. If the Class of 2005 has more loss, their increase is higher. Banding protects individual businesses by placing all risks in a series of mini-pools to spread that risk. In the old days, one employee with a heart attack drove up the entire business’s premium by 50%; now, a single cataclysmic dianosis is spread out.
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If these bad risks are taken out of the band – and employers KNOW they can be taken out of the band – you’re looking at potential ADA abuse and terminations. I won’t even bring up quality of care. And I speak as somebody who has a single medication, among others, with a CO-PAY of $245. I’e been to the Gulag of Health Care before, and I didn’t like it much.
it’s called taking my wife out to the theater and then to dinner, plus parking.
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side effects include drowsiness.
Contrast, in your example, Single Payer versus Married Payer. For similar medication, Single payer is more expensive, but side effects are minimized.