State regulations promulgated in December are going to close down church-based shelters for the homeless. The regulations’ given rationale is the state’s legitimate interest in safe and sanitary conditions in overnight shelters. But as written, the regulations would require churches to spend impossible sums to achieve compliance; and, perhaps tellingly, they would delimit a homeless person’s stays to 35 overnights per year, and would ban them altogether from June 15 to September 15. Such restrictions apparently will not apply to state-supported shelters — only to those run by churches and private organizations such as Salvation Army. One wonders if the hidden agenda isn’t to “eliminate the competition” provided by faith-based voluntary organizations in order to clear a path for much […]

Two thoughts on why the Massachusetts Connector has done such a horrible job meeting the demands of small business for affordable health insurance choices: (1) Some say that it is all Governor Patrick’s doing. Certainly, elections matter, and the Governor has paid no attention to the issue until recently, and in a really ham-handed way (price controls! yup, that’s a great idea…). But it’s more complicated than that. The fact is that the Connector was created in a very topdown manner that is not helping to meet the needs of a dynamic set of customers. A Boston Globe report on August 4, 2006, three months before the 2006 election, noted the following: The four Medicaid plans that will be offered […]

It is amazing to watch the Governor take credit for slapping price controls on insurance companies. Didn’t work for Nixon 40 years ago – and it is no smarter than a homeowner, when faced with a giant leak in the roof, who insists that a contractor keep slapping wallpaper up to hide the water damage. The Commonwealth Connector was supposed to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time — that is provide near-free products to the indigent and also to act as a marketplace where small business owners and employees could shop for lots of insurance options. The near-free products were marketed, with great success on the uptake but mixed results on improving access, improving quality […]

Saturday post. Off topic but hopefully a fun video. Intro. The Telegraph maps out the broad lines: In a rare public debate among Mr Berlusconi’s Party of Freedom, lower house speaker Gianfranco Fini, a co-founder of the party in 2009, levelled a raft of criticisms at the style and substance of the prime minister’s leadership… Mr Berlusconi stepped up to the podium right after Mr Fini’s speech, criticising his ally for making political statements while holding a post that requires him to be impartial and for not participating in the campaign for regional elections last month to thundering applause. In another life, I lived in Italy, was into the politics, and showed up on TV to comment on American stuff. […]