You bet your health!

Play the game here!
This site is sponsored by a nurse's organization. Looks like some health care providers are getting on board. It is a mystery to me ...

... why employers are not lining up to back health care reform since it could help them shed a great deal of cost. I would like to see a public option included in the health care reform bill currently before Congress. Our congressional delegation is leading the charge for that but you can sign the petition so that the Congress knows the public wants to move on health care reform. Maybe we can make it a condition of the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler that they have to move all their employees to a public plan. What do you think about having a public option?
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Why is health care so expensive?

This New Yorker magazine article examines why McAllen, Texas has the second highest spending per person on health care in the nation despite having the lowest per capita household income nationally.
Health care is less expensive in Rochester, Minnesota, home of the Mayo Clinic than in McAllen. The care provided is not as good as El Paso according to Medicare analysis.
I think the article is revealing ...

... and can be a basis for discussion of what our health care system needs. The Congress is currently debating a health care bill and the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are lobbying heavily to poison an option for a public provider. Read Robert Reich's take at the preceding link. Our congressional representatives are supportive of the public option and are leading the Congress on health care issues.
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Emailing the government

Mass INC has an article in their Commonwealth magazine (free registration required) detailing the responses received when emailing various government agencies for information. The email addresses were listed on their websites. Email is a ubiquitous method of communication in this day and age, so I'm sure that many users choose ...

... to send an email rather than call or write. What the author found was that many emails went unanswered and many gave incomplete or unsatisfactory answers, some took many weeks to reply. Others responded promptly and even followed up with a phone call. Do you have an experience with emailing a government agency? What was your experience? Do you think that email is a good vehicle for government to serve its constituents.
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Measures to balance state budgets listed

The National Conference of State Legislatures has compiled a table of actions that states across the country are employing to solve their budget puzzles. The list contains measures on both the revenue and spending side. You can find the table here
I find it interesting that many other states have proposed ...

... gasoline tax hikes as did our Governor.
Few states have even proposed raising personal income tax. New York being a notable exception. I would have preferred that option in our Commonwealth.
Layoffs were widespread across all categories of government.
The New York Times has more on which states are hardest hit here
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Allen's Pond in the news

This opinion piece in the Standard Times chronicles the challenges faced by the ecosystem of Allen's Pond. Residents were swarmed by mosquitoes last year when the pond's outlets silted up and the pond went stagnant. Without seawater coming in and out with the tide,...

... the pond becomes mosquito heaven. The greater question now is what to do about the problem. As the op-ed writer points out this is a natural cycle. What do you think should be done?
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Buckets of Rain - Bob Dylan

From Blood on the Tracks album, one of my favorites!


All you can do, is do what you must,
you do what you must do, and you do it well
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Here's something that would really help!

Charley on the MTA has a post at Blue Mass Group about health care reform that is moving through the US Congress and the State House.
Take a look at this pie chart about where our state dollars are spent. That big yellow piece of the pie is health care spending as well as the deep purple one for employee coverage. If these reforms can drive down what the state and municipalities spend for health care, ...

... it frees up billions of dollars for other uses. It might put a few extra dollars in your pocket too, unless you are an insurance company.
Our own Senator Kennedy has been in the forefront of this effort for many years. You can read his editorial on reform in the Globe here.
Yeah! Go Ted! Go Obama!
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For those hoping for more state aid!

From the Governor's Online Forums,(Link here) which are being hosted by Chancellor MacCormack of UMass Dartmouth, comes this little tidbit,

If you cut costs by laying off every employee in state government, you’d still have a $1.1 billion deficit. If you eliminate every state human services agency—Mental Health, Public Health, Transitional Assistance, Developmental Disabilities, etc—you would still be short $700 million. Since the state faces a combined budget deficit of approximately $9 billion in the next two fiscal years, the federal stimulus will be part of but not the entire solution. ...How would you raise new revenue? Which services would you cut? Which services would you preserve, and how would you pay for them?

For a pie chart that shows how the state spends our money, click here
The state and local rules for things like vacation, sick time, and pensions are the same or very similar in most cases. These issues are certainly a part of the problem.
But as you can see from the statement above, the bottom has fallen out of the revenue collection. The General Court has not done enough to correct that. I would like to see

... a graduated income tax to go with the sales tax hike that is likely to pass. Although I also think the flat income tax that Pennsylvania uses has a lot of merit. The rate is fairly low but here's the kicker, no deductions on earnings. If you make $20,000, you send in $600, if you make $200,000 send in $6,000. I would also support a tax on gasoline which is dedicated to mass transit and road repair only (not tolls, not more roads).
Even if the state emptied out the Stabilization Fund, they can't keep up the contributions to education and local aid. So much for next year might be better!
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State House committee on local relief meets in Fall River

The Herald News has this article today about the meeting of the Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government. The committee heard from local leaders yesterday on the measures that they would like to see enacted to help local governments. I like the idea of making it easier for local governments to join the state GIC insurance and hate the idea on funding local aid based on the Chapter 70 formula espoused by Fall River Councilwoman Viveiros. Mayor Lang of New Bedford pitched the idea of state aid for public safety services. I think we have more work to do with regional approaches such as regional dispatch before asking the state to fund our local fire and police.

And here is the rest.
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Town Meeting results

The annual Town Meeting was held today and adopted the 24 articles that were voted. Two articles were withdrawn. The results can be found at this link. The article to fund the Stabilization fund was withdrawn due to lack of funds. The article to reinstate the funding for the Youth Commission was withdrawn due to the fact that the funding was restored ...

... within the annual budget article, Article 10.
The Finance Committee had recommended against the adoption of Article 6, $350,000 to acquire the former State Police Barracks, funding the Youth Commission, and had reduced the line item for the Grant Department salaries by 15%. Town Meeting members spent considerable time debating these three issues and decided against the Finance Committee recommendations on each.
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