Something I got to wondering this morning as I was listening to Stuart Altman on NPR discussing the insurance rebellion in MA: what is the effect of this whole crisis on Charlie Baker? Because one of the things he’s made a cornerstone of his campaign is the fact that he ran Harvard Pilgrim. This, says he, uniquely fits him (among the candidates) to run the large regional corporation which is state government.
But here we see the said corporation basically thumbing its nose at the Commonwealth, and at the people of the Commonwealth. And Baker is very closely associated with that industry, which is, in my judgment, going to draw the ire of the citizenry in a big way (regardless of the merits of the insurance company position vis-a-vis the Commonwealth’s, which is a different blog post).
So there is a chance here for Baker to mediate this and look good, or for him to exploit the argument for political gain, and look…less good. Thoughts?
The lawsuit was filed in Suffolk Superior Court against defendant Joseph G. Murphy, the state insurance commissioner. Deval Patrick backs the insurance commissioner.
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p>Patrick should ignore the talk of the plaintiffs that this is “all political.” The state does not have a governor to proclaim state pickle week, but to fight for a political agenda that supporters voted for.
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p>In reality, it ALL is political in every way for both plaintiffs and defendants as well as the politician in robes that people call “Your Honor”.
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p>Both Gov. Patrick and Attorney General Coakley should help with the defendant’s strategy from behind the scenes.
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p>Patrick’s support has gone up a bit because he is fighting the greedy insurance companies that want to rip off the policy holders.
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p>And people can see it.
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p>Patrick, if he stays, fights, and wins, can mock Dirty Dog Baker as a fat-cat, greedy corporate type who wants to rip off the public. Baker would look bad and lose.
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p>If Patrick does not fight hard for the defendant in this lawsuit, so he doesn’t look “political” or whatever, Baker could win by screaming “TAX CUTS, TAX CUTS, TAX CUTS, TAX CUTS”, and making a few yarns about $1,500 toilet seat covers, or whatever.
“Didn’t happen on my watch! I was already gone by then.” Same excuse for his Big Dig finance fiasco. Charlie’s just a resume writer who manages to get the hell out of Dodge before it hits the fan, and he gets the blame.
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p>What’s he going to do?
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p>Suspend his campaign and call some kind of meeting? Appeal to the insurers to be nice, cut the people some slack, and voluntarily rollback these hikes? Demand that the providers do their part and reduce the costs that are driving the whole thing?
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p>He’s caught between the conservative rock and the free market hard place.
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p>Sometimes free markets make basic goods and services unaffordable, sometimes free market bubbles collapse and drag down economies, sometimes free markets ship jobs overseas, sometimes free markets hide corporate income overseas to avoid taxes, sometimes free markets refuse to insure pre-existing conditions, sometimes free markets hurt people.
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p>If he’s OK with all this, that this is just the free market doing its thing and we all should just accept it; g’head.
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p>If he wants to explain to the McVeigh Republicans that there is, alway has been, and always will be a role for government in society and the economy, g’head.
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p>If he wants to explain why he failed to control healthcare costs while running a major insurer, by whom he was very well paid; g’head. (Jim Roosevelt might be able to help him with this one.)
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p>If he wants to explain how a 4 billion dollar highway project became a 20 billion dollar project, g’head.
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p>You can’t just point to the resume and tell people how smart you are. Sometimes you gotta climb out of the truck and do some real work.