Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

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  1. excerpted in part from State House News Service ….

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    Lawmakers this week are turning their attention to job creation bills, with major proposals filed by both Gov. Deval Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray.  

    During debate, Tisei again called for repeal of the state’s so-called combined reporting law, which he described as a major tax hike on businesses that has prompted major companies to move divisions to other states.  

    And Sen. Michael Knapik contrasted Patrick’s new $50 million job creation tax credit plan with what he said was more than $2 billion in tax increases approved in recent years on individuals and businesses. Knapik concurred with Tisei that the UI rate adjustment should have been made last year to send a signal to employers planning for 2010.  

    Economic Development Committee Co-chair Sen. Karen Spilka highlighted state government’s decision to lower the corporate excise tax rate as a step aimed at helping businesses and claimed Republican critics were “posturing” during Thursday’s debate.

  2. What a concept!  I absolutely concur and hope you meant it when you said this:

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    Together, we can influence how public policy works for the well-being of all.

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    p>It should work for all, but especially the weakest of the weak.  Right now, the Governor and his vendor department heads are crafting disability policy which is forcing the closure of state-run facilities for people with developmental disabilities and serious handicaps in favor of vendor run group homes.  This fragile population, as it has been reported in a mortality study published in the AJMR, dies at a 72% higher rate when deinstitutionalized.  While group homes are wonderful and supportive places for most people with developmental disabilities, they cannot provide all the support and medical care that approximately 1-3% of this population needs.  An inappropriate placement can often have dire consequences and a cookie-cutter, one-size fits all policy can be a death sentence for some people.  

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    p>How shall we influence a governor who hired vendors to run our human services departments?  How do families compete with the well-oiled machine of vendors, with their lobbyists and vendor advocate organizations?  

    • I have copied part of a comment I made in response to Amberpaw’s comment that she felt alone in her efforts as an individual to influence policy.

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      The real power lies in the ability of a paid registered lobbyist or unpaid organizational volunteer to organize and mobilize a district based network of affected constituents willing and able to talk with with their own legislator about a proposed solution to a compelling sympathetic problem that them and representing themselves as a critical mass of the legislator’s district.

      There are “orphan” issues just like there are orphan drugs, without an organized constituency. For a lot of reasons, mostly because the proponents give up or go away.

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      p>Parents and family members of disabled people who thrive in institutional settings are pretty well organized in this state I know, and have paid lobbyists. To date they have failed to convince key policy makers they have the public support to keep the institutions open and stop the movement of folks into community based settings.

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      p>It’s not as simple as that of course, but they are wimming against a national tide.

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      p>At the moment.

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      p>Tides turn.  

      • Not so much.  We have one guy who helps us with communications.  For the rest of it, we rely on parents, family members and friends.  We’ve been at it for decades, and truth be told, have lost more ground under this alleged progressive governor than any other.  He’s as corporate as they come, but he’s wrapped in the sheep clothing of a progressive, so no one wants to say anything and ruin that good thing of having a Democrat in the corner office.  My cynical side thinks we’re better off having a Republican Governor because at least the legislature will join us in fighting him/her.  

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        p>The reason that we are failing to convince most key policy makers that institutional care is necessary and appropriate for this very small, very weak population is that the vendor advocates (ARCs) have been extremely successful at 2 things – defining the institutional care vs. group home care as money savings when it isn’t.  (I’ve got the studies on that too) and they’ve successfully used the family members of disabled people to shill for them on Beacon Hill, giving them the appearance of family advocates. In the old days, the ARC was a family organization, but then it got in the business of selling services to the state…and then its whole philosophy and personality changed.  Personally and professionally, I don’t think any organization that draws a dime from the state should be allowed to get away with that. This is not to detract from the good work that the ARC does; it provides good services for the most part, for people who can thrive in group homes.  What it doesn’t do terribly well is take care of the multiply-handicapped, profounded intellectually disabled, and it’s “group homes at any cost” philosphy isn’t humane or compassionate.  With the duality of motives, Kant would have a field day here.  

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        p>Judy, the data is on our side.  We have the mortality studies and we have the cost studies.  What we have here, however, is a intellectually and morally bankrupt ideology that insists on a cookie-cutter aproach, regardless of the outcome, and it has infected the four corners of US DDS systems.  When we’ve pointed to the multiple losses when fragile people are shoehorned into inappropriate settings, we are reminded by group home supporters that at least “they died with their rights on.”  I sat at one meeting in which a client service manager insisted that the dignity of a former institutional client had soared since she left the facility….which stunned me, given that she had been assaulted within months of her arrival.  Of course, the guardian demanded further safety precautions as result, but the fact is – here is a manager, trained by Commonwealth, praising “dignity” as a value, when safety is of paramount importance.

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        p>The system needs reform.  It needs real oversight, not the happy hogwash masquerading as oversight.  And we need to get leaders to understand that there’s a bodycount associated with laissez-faire, let the vendors run the system approach to service.  

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  3. Listening to ordinary citizens, too – not just “stakeholders” and corporations and their paid spokespersons [aka lobbyists].  While a lobbyist who has represented a particular industry or vendor for a decade has a body of knowledge, such professional advocates also have an agenda that may differ from the real needs of those intended to be served.

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    p>But a good start would be Deval Patrick, Robert DeLeo and Theresa Murray talking one issue at a time through.

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    p>Also, hiding real decision making in “conference committees” so the senators and representatives don’t have to do heavy lifting is not good.  Too much power to anonymous staff who write conference committee legislation that looks unlike what members voted on – and consolidated amendments no one reads.

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