The M&W Dems and BlogLeft Massachusetts (a loose coalition of MA lefty bloggers) are co-sponsoring a forum for the 5th District special election for the US House of Representatives, on the topic of health care, Saturday, June 2, from 10am – noon. It will take place at the Hudson Portuguese Club, 13 Port Street, Hudson, MA.
The bulk of the forum will consist of questions submitted by the audience and blog readers. Those questions will be screened for fairness and relevancy, but we invite you to post the queries YOU would like to ask the candidates about health care! Submit them in comments here.
RSVP will not be necessary, as there is plenty of room for audience members.
Bloggers are invited to come and live-blog the event, which promises to be a comprehensive debate between the candidates about health care in the United States. Wi-Fi will be available. We’re also working on posting the video online and/or live webcasting.
That I’ve asked of some of the candidates here, but have received no or what I thought were brush-off answers to. Here they are:
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1. Your position on DADT
As you know the current holder of the MA-05 seat, Rep Meehan, has been pushing for the repeal of Dont Ask Dont Tell. Today Jimmy Carter has joined other leaders and military professionals with a strong statement for the repeal. Where do you stand on this issue? Can the people of MA-05 count on your to take the baton from Rep Meehan and make equality for LGBT Americans a reality?
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2. Fuel cells on every building
Rep Finegold, I’m glad you’re interested in oil alternatives. However, it seems premature to me to commit public money to putting hydrogen (H) fuel cells everywhere without addressing a very pressing issue: how are we going to create the H fuel to fill them? Please be specific and comprehensive in your answer. Unless it is clear that H fuel can be made cleanly, renewably and in sufficient volume, the plan is not much more at this point than a subsidy to the local H cell producers. What percentage of the funding in your initiative will be dedicated to the problems associated with H fuel generation, not to mention building a whole new fuel delivery infrastructure?
I see that this is a HC forum. My questions are not relevant, unless you want to consider psychological stress for forced-closeted gay soldiers or health effects of long-term storage of nuclear waste as a health care issues. đŸ™‚
I’ve never understood why some people talk about using Massachusetts as a model for a national healthcare system. The Boston Globe in 2006 reported that it is unlikely to serve as a national model. Yet some candidates say that the MA plan looks like a “promising model”. Others say that the way to get national universal coverage is by signing onto the United States National Health Insurance Act. What I’m totally unclear about–not being anywhere near the same ballpark as an expert on healthcare– is just how using the MA system as a model could possibly work. On the other hand, there seems to be an intuitive benefit in looking at how our state handles the issue. More, part of the job of Congressperson seems to be bridging the gap between what works locally and what works on the federal level; a good Congressperson takes good ideas from his or her home state to the national level. So here’s my questions:
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Given the wide diversity of economies, income levels and other factors throughout the US, can the Massachusetts health care system truly serve as a national model? If it can, what can you as Congressman do to implement such a model? If our system cannot serve as a national model, what can the congressperson do to make health care truly universal? In other words, is expanding Medicare enough?
i’m pumped. we should hold a left ahead right after.
Packed sched that day. The neice’s 3rd birthday party for one! Gotta spoil her now because she’s about to become the ignored big sis when her baby sister is born! Heh. I don’t envy her parents THAT transition!
In 2000 the Institute of Medicine published a report on avoidable medical error to Err is Human.
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They found that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans were killed each year by AVOIDABLE medical errors making them the fourth leading cause of death in this country. Up to $29 billion was wasted on unecessary care to treat the conditions created by the errors. (The costs have nearly doubled since then due to health care inflation.)
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States, including Massachusetts, responded with reporting requirements. So we know 2,200 Massachsuetts residents died last year – more than the number of soldiers who died in Iraq over the past year – at an estimated cost of $670 million wasted.
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Isn’t it time for government to do more than just collect data?
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Would you support refusing to use tax payer dollars to reimburse providers for the additional care required to treat avoidable medical errors as a powerful incentive to adopt the methods that some hospitals have proven can prevent these errors in the first place?
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Barbara Roop
I think Barry Finegold’s leadership in the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Road Map is an impressive, action oriented response to multiple problems:
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(1) Wasteful and harmful over-dependence on oil; and
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(2) the replacement of the thousands of lost manufacturing jobs in the 5th district and elsewhere in the state with jobs in a new “green, emerging technology sector” here in MA.
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From this legislation, Finegold helped start the Massachusetts Hydrogen Coalition, a public/private partnership dedicated to retaining and promoting hydrogen fuel cell technology in the MA.
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By creating tax incentives to encourage the development of alternative energies, Finegold is cleverly combining the development of clean, green, alternative energies with the promotion and creation of new jobs and future tax revenues for MA.
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Finegold reports that “fuel cells have a distinct advantage over alternative fuels such as solar and wind power in that their ability to produce energy does not depend on constantly shifting environmental factors ? as long as the cells are supplied with hydrogen, they will produce a continuous stream of energy. This high reliability renders fuel cells well suited for supporting critical loads or emergency applications… On Beacon Hill, Finegold introduced the “Massachusetts Renewable Energy Road Map,” a package of policy ideas designed to invigorate our economy and protect the environment with research-and-development grants and tax incentives for Massachusetts companies developing fuel-cell technology. The legislation also creates a $1,500 state tax credit for consumers who purchase hybrid vehicles.”
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From this legislation, Finegold helped start the Massachusetts Hydrogen Coalition, a public/private partnership dedicated to retaining and promoting hydrogen fuel cell technology in the state.
Why not just publish the entire Finegold campaign brochure. You’re too subtle.
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Will W
1 What are the two or three biggest obstacles to creating a cost-effective universal coverage healthcare system for the U.S.? What will you do to overcome these obstacles?
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2 Do you think there is an important difference, when crafting reforms for a universal healthcare system, between using a mandate to buy commercial insurance versus creating a legal guarantee so that everyone has comprehensive coverage?
Insurers maintain viability from potentially large medical costs for individuals with expensive medical issues (asside from insurance shenanagains such as automatic denail) by distributing risk across as large a swath of people as possible. They further ensure competitive viablity be limiting their policy holder population to as healthy a demographic as is possible.
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Whatever your proposal,… what mechanisms, public or private, would you enact to insure that this distribution of risk is fair.
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If mandating insureres to cover anyone who would apply, what would you enact such that coverage is fair for ‘risky’ applicants?
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If regulating issues of price for ‘risky’ applicants, isn’t that just a model for interfering in profitability,… possibly to the extent of forcing an insurer into an untenable position? If so, doesn’t it make more sense to distribute risk across the whole population for a single insurer (the government)?