Commentaries

How universal is our health care?

By Rebekah Diamond.  Massachusetts is the nation’s leader in universal healthcare. Since passage of the Affordable Care Act in Congress, many have turned to Massachusetts to study its first-in-the-nation universal health care insurance program. Yet, despite the state’s purported mission to mandate insurance for all, coverage is not quite universal.  The state excludes from coverage lawful resident aliens. In 2009, the Massachusetts legislature passed an appropriations bill declaring immigrants who were here legally but not yet citizens ineligible for the state’s Commonwealth Care health insurance.  This law was written pursuant to the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), a federal act which limits federal benefits to immigrants in order to foster self-sufficiency, an act which states are not compelled to follow.  This law also affected those legal immigrants who were enrolled in Commonwealth Care at the time of its passage, limiting their benefits and forcing them to bear more costs in the less comprehensive “Bridge Program.”  This law currently affects approximately 40,000 legal resident aliens in Massachusetts. Continue reading »

Environmental budget cuts: Passing the financial burden to future generations

By Mathew Todaro.  On July 11, 2011, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed into law the 2012 state budget.  Included in the budget were significant cuts to environmental programs; so what, you may ask, is the big deal?  By making such cuts, policy makers succumbed to the temptation of a short-term solution—one that ultimately will cost Massachusetts tax-payers dramatically more in the long-run.

As lawmakers strip short-term funding, they run the risk that environmental agencies will become unable to uphold even the most rudimentary protections of public health and the environment.  If Massachusetts cannot sustain a healthy environment, health-related costs will rise, corporations will struggle to attract and retain a well-educated work force, farming and fishing industries will decline and the state’s $14 billion tourism industry will be jeopardized. Continue reading »

Adapting Massachusetts’ “housing first” policy for family homelessness

By David Linhart.   The administration of Governor Deval Patrick is midway into a five-year campaign to end homelessness in Massachusetts. On July 11, 2011, Patrick signed a law intended to move families into permanent housing quickly, rather than offering temporary shelter first. No one really knows what will help families who receive assistance to stay housed for the long haul, but encouraging supportive relationships with other assisted families is certainly a step in the right direction. Continue reading »

Do we need criminal penalties for false claims of military honors?

By Brett Walker.  Earlier this year, the Stolen Valor Act, which criminalized the false claim of military honors, was ruled unenforceable by a federal court of appeals in the case of U.S. v Alvarez. The decision was intended to preserve the right to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution, as reprehensible and vile as that speech might be. It was a fair and fitting decision, taking into account the U.S. military’s charge of defending the Constitution, but the manner in which the ruling was penned invited future attempts at similar legislation: an invitation as enticing as it is repugnant to our national values and cultural character. Continue reading »

Removing barriers to college education for disabled veterans

By Felicia Cote.  Veterans returning home with disabilities from the wars in Iraqi and Afghanistan often face long delays in getting the educational services their country promised them. There are several reasons for this: backlogs in Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) paperwork, discrepancies in defining the term “disabled,” and lack of advocacy for veterans.  Campus disability service offices must remove these barriers.

Massachusetts needs a better bottle law

Read as PDF | By Christina Fisher.  Is the expanded bottle bill a means to protecting our environment or really another tax on consumers?  The state Legislature has been debating this question for over a decade.  Even though the current bottle law is a proven success in providing clear environmental benefits, proponents of the expanded bottle bill have been unable to overcome political obstacles.  Despite these challenges, the current bottle law should be expanded due to the environmental benefits it promises.

The current bottle bill was enacted in 1981 and is the state’s most successful recycling and litter prevention program.  Consumers pay five cents when they purchase a beverage covered by the bottle bill. When they return the containers to retailers or redemption centers, the five cents is returned to them and the container is kept out of a landfill. Continue reading »

Why the Commonwealth’s affordable housing law, 40B, works

Read as PDF | By Arthur Hardy-Doubleday.  Chapter 40B is the Commonwealth’s affordable housing law. Since 1969, it has helped create affordable housing by expediting the permitting process for developers in exchange for their designation of up to 25 percent of the units developed as affordable.

This past November, the law was threatened with repeal in a referendum question on the statewide ballot.  It offered voters the chance to completely gut the law and to end the state’s ability to create new affordable housing.  While the law’s administration is not perfect, 40B has accomplished its major public policy objective of developing affordable housing. Apparently recognizing the value of the law, a substantial majority of voters in November rejected repeal of Chapter 40B. Continue reading »

A first step toward controlling health care costs: Medical loss ratios and Chapter 288

Read as PDF | By Margarita Warren.  Cost-containment may well prove to be the Achilles Heel of health care insurance reform.  In Massachusetts, health care insurance premiums are rising at an unsustainable rate with no end in sight. One aspect of recently-passed legislation that may do little in the short term but bring real long-term results  is the requirement  that health care insurance providers spend less on administrative and other non-medicals expenses.

Already, many people across the state face an enormous financial burden for health care insurance.  Consumers who purchase health care insurance individually or through a small employer spent 7 percent of the median family income on health care insurance in 1987. Today, that amount is nearly 20 percent. Continue reading »

Containing health care costs: Small steps in the right direction

Read as PDF | By Kristin Faucette.  Attempting to mitigate rapidly escalating health care costs, the Massachusetts legislature recently enacted Chapter 288, “An Act to Promote Cost Containment, Transparency, and Efficiency in the Provision of Quality Health Insurance for Individuals and Small Businesses.”  Some provisions in the law are a small step in the right direction.  But the majority of the provisions in Chapter 288 are short-term solutions that will only marginally assist small businesses in controlling future health care costs.  Not only does the legislation fall short of containing costs, it actually adds costs to an already overburdened system.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts deserves a lot of credit for its first-of-its-kind universal health insurance coverage.  Over 97 percent of the state’s residents are now insured.  The state has been a trailblazer in reforming the American health care system and has consistently served as a model for other states and the federal government to follow. Continue reading »

The foreclosure crisis in Massachusetts: Will “foreclosure initiatives” keep the sky from falling?

Read as PDF | By Nicole Woodworth.  In March of 2009 it was reported that a foreclosure was taking place every 13 seconds in the United States. As recently as November, Boston Globe reported “In Mass., foreclosure auctions averaging one per hour.”  These headlines, as well as many others, serve as a stark reminder of what has been dubbed “one of the most important challenges now facing U.S. policymakers.”  In Massachusetts, the latest attempt to stem the foreclosure crisis was signed into law on August 7, 2010, with the optimistically-titled moniker “An Act to Stabilize Neighborhoods” (Bill 2704).

The foreclosure initiative was considered part of a series of “consumer protection bills” unanimously approved by the Senate and House.  It was signed into law by Governor Deval Patrick in the driveway of a Brockton single-family home that had been foreclosed upon.   The Patrick administration called it a way to “keep people in their homes” and to “stabilize neighborhoods.” It has yet to be seen whether the new law will provide such relief for foreclosed upon homeowners. Continue reading »