Budget shortfall
Like many residents of Westfield, I was deeply disturbed and alarmed with the latest report by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association indicating that the $329 million budget shortfall-deficit announced by Governor Patrick’s administration may be off and that the real number could be upwards of $1 billion dollars. I was made aware of this report last week at a legislative summit where the author of the new report and President of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association, Michael Widmer, was a participant and guest lecturer. The causes of this astronomical deficit are many, but I am going to focus on one central issue, the Massachusetts Health Connector, and the problems which occurred when the Health Connector rolled out it’s enrollment website.
There are varying estimates, but by most accounts the Health Connector cost the taxpayers of Massachusetts anywhere between $250-500 million dollars. Wasting that much taxpayer money on a website that repeatedly failed is absolutely inexcusable. As you may or may not know, the problem with the Health Connector began when Massachusetts (like all states) had to change their existing healthcare structure to comply with the Federal Government’s recently enacted health care law, the Affordable Care Act.
You may recall, the Federal Government had serious and complicated problems enrolling people in health care because of a faulty website. The company that handled the health care website rollout for the Federal Government (CGI) quickly demonstrated their ineptitude and sheer inability to effectively handle the task at hand. Now one would think that CGI’s disastrous performance for the federal government would give everyone pause before hiring them to handle the same type of job again. Unfortunately, Massachusetts did not heed that warning. Massachusetts, for reasons still unclear to me, decided to hire CGI to handle the rollout of the Health Connector website.
As one would expect, the problems with CGI and the website began immediately. Residents of Massachusetts complained of not being able to navigate the website, as well as constantly being kicked off, informing the residents they had successfully been enrolled in health insurance only to find out that there was no record of them in the system. So instead of Massachusetts firing CGI as you would expect, we continued to throw millions and millions of dollars at them! This is exactly what I was talking about on the campaign trail when I told countless residents of Westfield that one of my main priorities as your state representative would be to fight waste and abuse in government spending. I can think of no greater example of wasteful government spending than the fiasco with the Health Connector website. Needless to say, if I had been in office when this charade was occurring I would have been a loud and strident defender of the Massachusetts taxpayers’ dollars.
Recognition for western Mass.
Governor-elect Charlie Baker is set to be sworn in on January 8. One way to predict how the Governor-elect will manage the affairs of office is to look at what he has done during this transition period. I think by all accounts he is doing a good job. He seems to be forming a team of staffers without regard to political party. Without knowing the exact numbers, I think he has hired as many Democrats to work for him as he has Republicans. This bodes well for Massachusetts as it suggests Mr. Baker’s priorities will be to disregard party politics and get things done as opposed to political posturing and partisan warfare like we see in Washington where nothing gets done. This past week, however, Mr. Baker did something that made me irate.
As part of his transition effort, Mr. Baker is forming committees composed of experts from various fields to get him up to speed on the issues. One of the committees he has formed is a health committee made up of 23 members. I was astounded when I found out that not one of the members of the health committee was from western Massachusetts. This is inexcusable. As a member of the Joint Committee on Public Health, I find this particularly egregious.
This slight by Mr. Baker reminds me of this past summer when my public health committee held hearings on Ebola virus preparations and readiness and not one hospital or person asked to testify in front of the hearing was from western Mass. Western Mass. being ignored from any of these events or committees is entirely unacceptable. We have some of the best hospitals and brightest doctors in the state right here in western Mass. I can’t imagine the Governor-elect truly believes that not one doctor or administrator from Noble Hospital, Baystate Medical Center, Mercy Hospital, Holyoke Medical Center, Cooley Dickenson, etc. would be up to the task of serving on this committee. I am in the process of drafting a letter to Governor-elect Baker expressing my serious concerns about western Mass. being left our of his newly formed health committee.
And lastly and most importantly, Happy Holidays!!
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not the staff, editor, or publisher of this publication.
