Beware of Baker Victory
While the theoretical issure of Stein vs. Patrick is interesting, the reality is much harsher. In fact, a vote for Stein in this election will turn out to be a vote for Charlie Baker. Unfortunately, Stein is running so badly in the polls and in raising money that she has no chance of winning.
Any of us who were working in health and human services when Charlie Baker was Secretary under Gov. Weld remember him only too well. As Secretary he cut services for the most disadvantaged of our neighbors without losing a minute of sleep. He closed down Harvard Pilgrim’s programs in Rhode Island with the same cold precision.
In spite of his good looks and patrician manner, Charlie Baker would be a disaster for all of us in Massachusetts. Try to remember that when you make your choice at the polls.
Tom Wolff
Leverett
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“Student Loan Sharks”
We need loan recipients to unite to change this system (“Killer Loans,” October 14, 2010). If we were to organize a date on which every student/parent with loans over $35,000 stopped paying and refused to pay until a sensible system and better protections were in place, this outrageous federally sponsored loan-shark system would collapse and lenders would be forced to change.
Bankruptcy protection should not be the focus—making repayment affordable should be. Bankruptcy is no picnic and has longterm repercussions, and people will be opposed to a law that allows people to run up a debt with no intention of paying it, so all efforts should be made to lower the cost of education in the first place, and make repayments affordable, perhaps capped at no more than 25 percent of income; enforce low interest rates; and have loans forgiven after 10 years of steady payments.
I would like to see the first five years, while students are at their lowest earning potential, be interest-free. Whatever balance is left after five years should have no more than 3 to 5 percent interest. Anything more is punitive.
Sue Purchon
via Internet
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Another [writer] stated that bankruptcy should not be the primary focus, and I do not think it is. In addition, it does not mean that people are planning to use [bankruptcy] to get out of a loan. Bankruptcy is no picnic and can be as stressful as a divorce. But if you are about to lose everything (including your mind), and cannot sustain even a basic living, or are hurt and unable to work, at least there is a way to [avoid] total collapse of one’s life.
I owe an amount at 51 years old that would make most people just quit life. I am lucky to be able to pay at present, but it is so depressing when I think that one of my viable options is to leave the country. I love the U.S. and served 14 years with the Special Forces, but I am in a position that can make me homeless very easily. One injury, or if business was to slow for a couple of months, I would be so in debt as to have no other recourse but to move overseas and start a new life there—away from everything I love, but at least free from the draconian collectors and the pitiful life that would be left to me since no other option was on the table.
Yes, bankruptcy is not the focus, but it should be there if all else fails. I would love it if I could refinance my loan like any other. It’s criminal that we can’t, especially if that is the only way one can afford it. I borrowed $130,000 ($70,000 for school, $60,000 to feed my kids), owe $252,000 due to deferring, and will pay around $1,900 a month till I am 80. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
John Raymond
via Internet
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Ballot Question: Single-Payer Health Care
The Massachusetts Campaign for Health Care Justice will have non-binding, single-payer health care questions on the Nov. 2 ballot in fourteen state representative districts. The language of the ballot question is:
Shall the representative from this district be instructed to support legislation that would establish health care as a human right regardless of age, state of health or employment status, by creating a single payer health insurance system like Medicare that is comprehensive, cost effective, and publicly provided to all residents of Massachusetts?
It will appear on the ballot in the following districts: 2nd Berkshire (Ashfield, Becket, Bernardston, Buckland, Cheshire, Colrain, Cummington, Dalton, Hancock, Hinsdale, Lanesborough, Leyden, Middlefield, New Ashford, Northfield, Peru, one precinct of Pittsfield, Plainfield, Richmond, Shelburne, Washington and Windsor); 4th Berkshire (Alford, Egremont, Great Barrington, Lee, Lenox, Monterey, Mount Washington, New Marlborough, Otis, Sandisfield, Sheffield, Stockbridge, Tyringham, West Stockbridge, Blandford, Chester, Tolland, Hampden); 1st Franklin (Belchertown, Chesterfield, Conway, Deerfield, Goshen, Huntington, Leverett, Montague, New Salem, Pelham, Shutesbury, Sunderland, Wendell, Whately, Williamsburg and Worthington); 8th Hampden (much of Chicopee).
Question 4 uses Medicare as the easiest reference point to understand a proposal for single-payer health care, a system of reimbursing health care providers that actually brings down the costs of health care by cutting out for-profit middlemen, and makes health care affordable without shifting costs onto workers and businesses. Rising health care costs are crippling municipal, business and household budgets, and national health reform and Massachusetts’ Chapter 58 will not control them. Costs continue to rise as Wall Street demands profits from our health care system. “Medicare for All” would control costs and provide relief to millions of struggling businesses and residents. In Massachusetts alone, it would save $9.7 billion in administrative waste (about 33 percent of each health care dollar) caused by private health insurance. That’s enough to eliminate the underinsurance problem in Chapter 58.
Co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance, and medical portions of auto insurance, workers’ comp and homeowners’ insurance all disappear. Medical providers have much lower billing costs. Jobs grow because the burden of health care costs is taken off businesses.
People are healthier under a such a system because they face no financial barriers to getting care and because “Medicare for All” provides free choice of doctors and hospitals; universal and guaranteed coverage; and coverage for all medically necessary care and prescriptions. No insurance company stands between us and our doctors and other providers. This kind of health insurance is paid for through fair taxation which actually costs individuals, businesses, municipalities, and the Commonwealth less than our present system. There is more information about us and Question 4 at http://masscare.org/.
Jon Weissman
Chair, Western Mass. Single Payer Network
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Correction: In “The Price of Activism” (October 14, 2010), we stated that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for selling U.S. government secrets to the Russians. The Rosenbergs were not convicted of selling secrets, but of conspiring to pass secrets to the Russians.
